Thus, when he heard the shots, Captain Karge leapt to his conclusions. “The regularity of the volleys gave me the impression that the affair was well organised and possibly under military command.” It never occurred to him that they might be German volleys commanded by German officers as apprehensive as himself. “Everywhere, apparently,” he proceeds, “the firing came, _not from the windows_, but from roof-openings or prepared loopholes in the attics of the houses.” But if not from the windows, why not from the square, which was crowded with German soldiers, when a moment afterwards (admittedly) these very soldiers were firing furiously? “This” (assumed direction from which the firing came) “is the explanation of the smallness of the damage done by the shots to men and animals,” and, in fact, the only victim the Germans claim is Colonel Stenger, the Brigadier. After the worst firing was over and the troops were getting under control, Colonel Stenger was found by his aide-de-camp (A 2), who had come up to his room to make a report, lying wounded on the floor and on the point of death. Captain Folz (A 5) records that “the Regimental Surgeon of the Infantry Regiment No. 140, who made a post-mortem examination of the body in his presence on the following day, found in the aperture of the breast wound a deformed leaden bullet, which had been shattered by contact with a hard object.” It remains to prove that the bullet was not German. The German White Book does not include any report from the examining surgeon himself. Meanwhile, the town and people of Aerschot were given over to destruction. “I now took some soldiers,” proceeds Captain Karge, “and went with them towards the house from which the shooting”--in Captain Karge’s belief--“had first come.... I ordered the doors and windows of the ground floor, which were securely locked, to be broken in. Thereupon I pushed into the house with the others, and using a fairly large quantity of turpentine, which was found in a can of about 20 litres capacity, and which I had poured out partly on the first storey and then down the stairs and on the ground floor, succeeded in setting the house on fire in a very short time. Further, I had ordered the men not taking part in this to guard the entrances of the house and arrest all male persons escaping from it. When I left the burning house several civilians, including a young priest, had been arrested from the _adjoining_ houses. I had these brought to the square, where in the meantime my company of military police had collected. “I then ... took command of all prisoners, among whom I set free the women, boys and girls. I was ordered by a staff officer to shoot the prisoners. Then I ordered my police ... to escort the prisoners and take them out of the town. Here, at the exit, a house was burning, and by the light of it I had the culprits--88 in number, after I had separated out three cripples--shot....” [Illustration: 11. HAELEN] [Illustration: 12. AERSCHOT]