Another man told me as calmly of an incident that occurred near his country-seat, at the home of a farmer he knew. The farmer had a number of Prussian officers and soldiers billeted upon him in 1914 and, being both good-natured and prudent, he treated them well. When the day came for them to depart, the chief officers, three in number, bade him harness the one horse he still possessed, and drive them to Brussels. There they were to remain a day before rejoining their troops, which were to depart on foot that afternoon. The farmer’s wife and daughter, after serving the officers with breakfast, took leave of them amiably enough, and received their thanks for courteous treatment. But on returning alone, at twilight of the same day, the farmer was surprised to see no smoke coming from his chimney, and still more astonished to find the doors wide open and bits of broken crockery strewn about the courtyard. Before taking his horse to the stable, he cried loudly for his wife, and receiving no answer, ran into the house, which he found deserted. Neither wife nor daughter were there to welcome him, and the kitchen presented a scene of strange disorder, as though wild beasts had been in battle there. Broken dishes lay on the floor, empty wine bottles and tumblers stood on the table, and one lay under it in the midst of a dark, dry stain of wine. To make a long story short, the farmer rushed in terror to the village and there found his assistant surrounded by a group of terrified townsfolk, discussing the tragedy. No sooner had the farmer departed, than soldiers entered his house, raided the wine-cellar and, after drinking themselves into beasts, assaulted his wife and daughter. The assistant had attempted to defend them, but being unequal to the task against so many, ran to the village for help. When he returned with others it was too late; they found the farm vacated; wife, daughter, and soldiers gone! The farmer, half-maddened with fear on hearing this, set out with a number of others to search for his dear ones; but only after nightfall they found a trace of them, in a wood some distance from the farm. While following with lanterns the foot-marks of soldiers which led them to this spot, the farmer suddenly espied a bit of the gown his daughter had worn, protruding from the ground. The place was opened, and there, just beneath the sod, lay the body of his daughter in the ghastly pose of hurried burial. Later his wife was discovered, quite demented, roaming far off in the country. This story is not given as one of the most atrocious of those we heard almost daily; for it is far from that. In this case the criminals were drunken soldiers, not cold-blooded, sober officers, such as the authors of the Aerschot tragedy, those committed at Tamines, and all along the route from Liège to Brussels!