Excerpt: ... of killing. Knowing that this was the temper of some of the sentries, I speeded along at a rapid rate, daring to make one cut across a field, and so came to Jupilles without challenge. Stopping to get a drink there, I realized what a protest my feet were making against the strain to which I was putting them. Luckily, a peasant's vegetable cart was passing, and, jumping on, I was congratulating myself on the relief, when after a few hundred yards the cart turned up a lane, leaving me on the road again with one ...
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Excerpt: ... of killing. Knowing that this was the temper of some of the sentries, I speeded along at a rapid rate, daring to make one cut across a field, and so came to Jupilles without challenge. Stopping to get a drink there, I realized what a protest my feet were making against the strain to which I was putting them. Luckily, a peasant's vegetable cart was passing, and, jumping on, I was congratulating myself on the relief, when after a few hundred yards the cart turned up a lane, leaving me on the road again with one franc less in my pocket. There were so few soldiers along this stretch that I drove myself along at a furious pace, slowing up only when I sighted a soldier. I was very hot, and felt my face blazing red as the natives gazed after me stalking so fiercely past them. But the great automobiles plunging by flung up such clouds of dust that my face was being continually covered by this gray powder. What I most feared was lest, growing dizzy, I should lose my head and make incoherent answers. Faint with the heat I dragged myself into a little wayside place. Everything wore a dingy air of poverty except the gracious keeper of the inn. I pointed to my throat. She understood at once my signs of thirst and quickly produced water and coffee, of which I drank until I was ashamed. "How much!" I asked. She shook her head negatively. I pushed a franc or two across the table. "No," she said smilingly but with resolution. "I can't take it. You need it on your journey. We are all just friends together now." So my dust and distress had their compensations. They had brought me inclusion in that deeper Belgian community of sorrow. It was apparent that the Germans were going to make this rich region a great center for their operations and a permanent base of supply. There must have been ten thousand clean-looking cattle on the opposite bank of the river; they were raising a great noise as the soldiers drove their wagons among them, throwing down the hay and grain....
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