I could see, and I still can see, those big Belgian hounds sniffing
along the outskirts of the crowd and plainly advertising for an owner; I
can see other hounds with their heads thrown back wailing at the
door of their deserted and abandoned homes. And I can see the
Dutch border where Holland opened out her arms, and the Dutch
peasants gave us rye bread and sandwiches and good long drinks of
welcome milk.
Sometimes I can sit with my legs dangling over the stern of that old
towboat barge on which I finally made my escape, and can visualize
the blue-gray spire of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, standing, it
seemed to me, a quiet sentinel over the ruins of the tortured city; and,
then, as the old barge sweeps around the river's bend, I can look
back upon the last of Antwerp's story written in flaming letters of red
against the early morning sky.
Chapter VII
Spying On Spies
Less than forty-eight hours after the fall of Antwerp the wave of
helpless humanity whose crest broke on the Belgian border had
rolled over the entire length and breadth of Holland. Thousands of
Belgian refugees wandered as far north as The Hague, where
various Dutch relief committees and the American Legation at The
Hague did their best to house the homeless and relieve the suffering.
Dr. van Dyke rolled up his sleeves still farther and strained to solve
the problem of the unemployed, sometimes, when a case interested
him, turning his own pocket inside out.
Eight days after the Antwerp bombardment, I left The Hague for my
second trip into Germany.
Just before my start Captain Sunderland, U.S.A., at the head of the
American Relief Committee at The Hague, asked me to help him in
taking charge of two carloads of grain, which were to go across the
German border and be distributed among the starving Belgians at
Liege. England had agreed not to interfere with food supplies,
provided the United States saw that they did not fall into German
hands in Belgium. The present job required sleeping in the freight
cars and saying, in one form or another, "Hands off!" to every spiked
helmet that tried to interfere. Captain Sunderland could speak no
German, and as I had already been over the same territory and had
had some experience with the military authorities, he wished me to
accompany him.
I decided, however, to go into the interior of Germany. I had already
seen three armies in the field, and had watched, more or less closely,
the people of two warring nations. I was now particularly anxious to
study the German point of view, and if possible get to the front with
the Crown Prince's army.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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