Yet these victims in their misery were accused of shooting by their tormentors. “On August 27th,” states an officer concerned,[357] “the Third Battalion of the Landwehr Infantry Regiment No. 53 had to take with it on its march from _Rotselaer_ to Louvain a convoy of about 1,000 civilian prisoners.... Among the prisoners were a number of Belgian priests, one of whom,[358] especially caught my attention because at every halt he went from one to another of the prisoners and addressed words to them in an excited manner, so that I had to keep him under special observation. In Louvain we made over the prisoners at the _Station_.... On the following morning it was reported to me ... that the above-mentioned priest had shot at one of the men of the guard, but had failed to hit him, and in consequence had himself been shot in the _Station Square_.” Such were the rumours that passed current in the German Army; but there is no reference in this officer’s deposition to what really happened at the _Station_ on the night of the 27th-28th. The prisoners arrived there about 7.0 p.m., and were immediately put on board a train. Their numbers had risen by now to between 2,000 and 3,000,[359] and the overcrowding was appalling. The curé of _Rotselaer_ was placed in a truck which had carried troops and was furnished with benches; but even this truck was made to hold 50 people,[360] while the majority were forced into cattle trucks--from 70 to 100 men, women, and children in each,[361] which had never been cleaned, and were knee-deep in dung.[362] They stood in these trucks all night, while the train remained standing in the _Station_. On August 28th, about 6.0 in the morning, they started for _Cologne_, but the stoppages and shuntings were interminable, and _Cologne_ was not reached till the afternoon of August 31st. During these four days--from the evening of August 27th to the afternoon of August 31st--the prisoners were given nothing to eat,[363] and were not allowed to get out of the train to relieve themselves when it stopped.[364] “We had nothing to eat,” states one of them,[365] “not even the child one month old.”--“My wife was suckling her child,” states another,[366] “but her milk came to an end. My wife was crying nearly all the time. The baby was dreadfully ill, and nearly died.”--“We had been without food for two days and nights, and had nothing to drink till we got to _Cologne_, except that one of my fellow-prisoners had a bottle of water, from which we just wetted our lips.”[367]--“I asked for some water for my child at _Aix-la-Chapelle_, and it was refused. It was the soldiers that I asked, and they spat at me when they refused the water. The soldiers also took all the money that I had upon me.”[368]--“We had not been allowed to leave the train to obey the calls of nature, till at _Cologne_ we went on our knees and begged the soldiers to allow us to get down.”[369]