I do not mean to imply that all Belgians are like this. I had evidently fallen into the hands of a gang who were endeavoring to make capital out of the misfortunes of those who were referred to them for help. In all countries there are bad as well as good, and in a country which has suffered so much as poor Belgium it is no wonder if some of the survivors have lost their sense of moral perspective. I know the average poor peasant in Belgium would divide his scanty rations with a needy fugitive sooner than a wealthy Belgian would dole out a morsel from his comparatively well-stocked larder. Perhaps the poor have less to lose than the rich if their generosity or charity is discovered by the Huns. There have been many Belgians shot for helping escaped prisoners and other fugitives, and it is not to be wondered at that they are willing to take as few chances as possible. A man with a family, especially, does not feel justified in helping a stranger when he knows that he and his whole family may be shot or sent to prison for their pains. Although I suffered much from the attitude of Huyliger and his associates, I suppose I ought to hold no grudge against them in view of the unenviable predicament which they are in themselves. XIII FIVE DAYS IN AN EMPTY HOUSE The five days I spent in that house seemed to me like five years. During all that time I had very little to eat--less, in fact, than I had been getting in the fields. I did not feel it so much, perhaps, because of the fact that I was no longer exposed to the other privations which had helped to make my condition so wretched. I now had a good place to sleep, at any rate, and I did not awake every half-hour or so as I had been accustomed to do in the fields and woods, and, of course, my hunger was not aggravated by the physical exertions which had been necessary before. Nevertheless, perhaps because I had more time now to think of the hunger pains which were gnawing at me all the time, I don't believe I was ever so miserable as I was at that period of my adventure. I felt so mean toward the world I would have committed murder, I think, with very little provocation. German soldiers were passing the house at all hours of the day. I watched them hour after hour from the keyhole of the door--to have shown myself at the window was out of the question because the house in which I was concealed was supposed to be untenanted. Because of the fact that I was unable to speak either Flemish or German I could not go out and buy food, although I still had the money with which to do it. That was one of the things that galled me--the thought that I had the wherewithal in my jeans to buy all the food I needed, and yet no way of getting it without endangering my liberty and life.