The 2nd Battalion of the Infantry Regiment held itself at the disposal of the Brigade Commander on this road close to the first houses in Leffe. Shortly after the front battalions had fallen in, I received the order from the Battalion Commander, Major Koch, to report myself to the Brigade Commander for a reconnaissance patrol. There I received the instruction to reconnoitre a pathway which leads by La Papeterie to the heights north of the lower road; a group of about ten houses on the left of the road, clustering round a large paper factory, is called La Papeterie. In carrying out this order I rode first by the lower road to La Papeterie in order then to turn off towards the heights. On my approaching the factory some shots were fired, evidently pistol-shots; I then rode farther, because I thought the firing was not meant for me; but as it became more brisk and I saw that the shots struck the steep-rising wall of the rocks, as high as houses, on the right of the road, and that I could not carry out the reconnaissance in this very broken, rocky district on horseback, I turned back. Only the sharpest pace saved me from the shots which, thick as hail, struck the face of the cliff beside me. I reported this affair to my Battalion Commander and took the foremost section of the leading company in order to execute my errand on foot without delay, not without having first asked to have the factory cleared. On my second advance I was again fired at, so that I found myself obliged to turn off before the steep cliff in order to get forward under cover of gardens and hedges. I succeeded in this without any losses, although on this occasion I was still briskly fired at.