The Log of a Noncombatant | Page 9

German gauntlet was not precisely his hobby.
Down went the emergency brake and the car jolted to a sudden halt.
A bristle-whiskered German giant under a canvas-covered helmet stuck
his head through the flaps, and for more than ten minutes he and
another sentinel searched our knapsacks and credentials and inspected
the Government mail pouches which we carried. The sentries were far
from satisfied. We said little at first, realizing, nevertheless, that we had
run between the opposing trenches and up to the German outposts
without actually drawing fire. That, at least, was something of a
comfort.
Then, as if the answer was the price of admission, the big one asked us
if we had seen many British soldiers around Antwerp and Ghent. We
had previously decided that the answer to such talk was, "None of your
business." But the fellow's bayonet was infernally bright and sharp and
his countenance like ice. It wasn't only the equinoctial rain that made us
shiver.
While I was trying to limber up my German vocabulary he passed us
along to his Ober-leutenant in the hut along the roadside. The Ober-
Ieutenant was grave. He said we must report to army headquarters in
Brussels, and that under no circumstances should we be allowed to
return within the Belgian lines. In this way began our eight days'
confinement within the lines of the German Army of the North under
General von Boehn.
Just as we had been warned repeatedly, so we discovered in reality that
to cross between two opposing lines was no joking matter. Bad enough,

particularly in the early days of the war, to a correspondent without
permission at the front. To work up from the rear (if you had
permission) was at least according to the rules of the game. But to cross
between hostile armies--that was the one forbidden act. The fact that
we were with an American Consul was not sufficient. Three days later
Van Hee was allowed to return, but the remainder of the party, that is to
say, Willard Luther and myself, were given a free trip into German
territory and incidentally more than a week's chance to study the
German army from within.
Those next eight days Luther and I spent as willing and, on the whole,
decently treated captives within the lines of the German Army of the
North, talking freely with cultivated officers and grimy men of the
ranks, and in this way learning much of the German war machine, the
opinions of the officers and the men at their command. It would be
interesting to tell how in Brussels we dodged from War Office to cafe,
from cafe to consulate, from consulate back to War Office, and later
were worried and watched and suspected; how we were shipped back
across the German border on a combination Red Cross and ammunition
train; how we were locked for much of the night in a half-mile tunnel
of the northern Vosges Mountains, and there, in the groping darkness
of our box-car prison, shared the soldier's biscuit and his bottle, so
coming to know the Kaiser's private as a companion and not as the
barbarian his enemies paint him.
The day after we got inside the German lines we went before Major
Heinrich Bayer, at that time military commandant in Brussels in the
absence of General von der Goltz. Jostling through the street and
jamming the courtyard of the War Office was a crowd of a thousand
persons--mothers, children, whole families begging for relief or
permission to leave the city limits; German subjects trying to get passes,
officials and employees of the civil administration taking orders from
the military authorities. A relay of aides, orderlies, and secretaries led
us from courtyard to corridor and from corridor to staff headquarters
and into the Holy of Holies--the office of the commandant.
Grim, stern,--but courteous throughout the interview,--the major paced
the floor beside his desk. He seemed anxious enough to be rid of the
"crazy Americans" who had wandered through the Belgian and German
lines, not altogether satisfied with their integrity, yet not wishing to

take a hostile attitude. I asked him when he thought the war would be
over. At the moment the German major, Vice-Consul Van Hee, and I
were the only persons in the room.
"I do not know," he said, as if thinking aloud; "I really do not know.
America is the only country that has not fired on us yet, but all the rest
--" Then he added thoughtfully, "Perhaps it is better that you go. But
you cannot return to Ghent or Antwerp; you must go back to
Germany." He stopped as if he had gone too far, and then sharply
commanded the orderly to remove us. Forty-eight hours later Mr. Van
Hee got his release. To