CHAPTER II
IN LIèGE AND BACK TO MAASTRICHT
 
A GLORIOUS summer evening, quite refreshing after the exhausting heat of the day. Nature invited to restfulness, and so much the more cruel sounded the incessant thunder of the guns, which also boomed from the citadel. As soon as the Germans had taken possession of this old, dilapidated fortress they proceeded to drag their guns on to it, and trained them on the surrounding forts.
The streets offered the same aspect as those at Visé. From each house floated the pitiful little white flag; the people sat together on their "stoeps," for they did not venture out in the streets. Everywhere I was again saluted in the same cringingly polite manner, and eyed with suspicion.
Crowds of soldiers moved through the main streets, revelling, shouting, screaming in their mad frenzy of victors. They sat, or stood, or danced in the cafés, and the electrical pianos and organs had been started again "by order." Doors and windows were opened wide, and through the streets sounded forth the song "Deutschland über Alles" (Germany before all other), which affected the inhabitants as a provocation and a challenge. Oh! one could41 see so clearly how thousands of citizens suffered from it, how they felt hurt in their tenderest sentiments. Dull and depressed they stared in front of them, and whenever their set features relaxed, it was a scornful grin.
From warehouses and from shops bales of corn, flour, sugar, and other goods were taken, thrown in heaps and then placed on all sorts of carts and motors. In the most frequented parts military bands had taken their stand, and played amidst the loud jubilation of the soldiers.
I walked about a little longer to examine the damage done. The fine Pont des Arches was for the greater part destroyed by the retreating Belgians, as well as the Pont Maghin. This is a pity, especially as regards the first-named bridge, so famous as a work of art, and the more so as other bridges had not been touched and could be used by the Germans. The bombardment did not damage the town to any great extent, but it was remarkable that the largest houses had suffered most.
Having walked some thirty miles that day, I began to feel a serious need for rest. But when I applied, there was no room anywhere in the hotels, and where there was room they told me the contrary after a critical glance at my outfit.
I then tried to find the nunnery of the S?urs de la Miséricorde, where one of my cousins had taken the veil. At last, in the Rue des Clarisses I found the huge door of the monastery, and rang the bell. After a few moments a small trellised shutter in the stout door was opened ajar, and a tremulous voice asked in French what I wanted. I assumed that42 it was one of the nuns, but I could see nothing through that narrow jar.
"Sister," I said, "I am a cousin of S?ur Eulalie, and should like to see her, to know how she is and take her greetings to her family in The Netherlands."
"S?ur Eulalie!... S?ur Eulalie!... You ... you ... are a ... cousin ... of ... S?ur Eulalie?"
The terrified little sister was unable to stammer anything more, and in great fear suddenly closed the little shutter again.
There I was left! After waiting a while I rang the bell once more, and once more the little shutter was opened in the same timid manner.
"Now, look here, sister, I am a cousin of S?ur...."
"No, no, sir, your cousin ... is not here."
Bang! The shutter was closed again. But I did not give it up, for I needed the sisters' assistance to find a shelter somewhere. Once more I made the bell to clang, and although I was kept waiting a little longer, at last I heard voices whispering behind the gate and once more something appeared behind the trellis.
"Sister," I said then, "if you will only ask S?ur Eulalie to come to this gate she will recognise me, of course?"
"She is your cousin, you say?"
"Certainly, sister. Tell her that Bart of Uncle Henry is here." Again I was switched off, but the communication was this time restored after a few moments, and then I heard a joyful and surprised exclamation:
43 "Oh! Bart, is it you?"
So at last the lock of the heavy door screeched, and I was admitted. I noticed that about a score of sisters had gathered behind the gate and were anxiously discussing the "strange occurrence." My meeting with S?ur Eulalie, however, was so cordial that the good nuns lost all anxiety, and I was taken inside accompanied by nearly all the inmates of the convent.
They first wanted me to explain what put it into my head to come to Liège, and how I had managed to get there; but as the sisters heard of my empty stomach and my thirty miles, they would not listen to another word before I had put myself round a good square meal.
In the meantime they themselves had a word or two to say about the fright I gave them; for when I stood at the door they mistook me in my sporting habit for a German officer, and the top of my water-bottle for the butt of a revolver!
The work of these sisters is the education of neglected children, and they spoke about their fears during the last momentous days. During the bombardment they stayed night and day with all those little ones in the heavily vaulted cellars of the nunnery, praying all the time before the Blessed Sacrament that had been removed from the chapel and taken into the cellar for safety.
They constantly heard the boom, boom of the shells exploding near by, and each time thought that their last hour had struck. The gloomy cellar depressed them still more, and nobody really believed that there was any chance of being saved. So the44 little sisters prayed on, preparing each other for death, and looking for the approaching end in quiet resignation.
For the moment all they knew was that the Germans were in the town, as none of them yet had ventured outside the building. At present their great fear was that Germans might be billeted on them.... Oh! they might take everything if only they did not come themselves.
When I left I got a lot of addresses of relations in The Netherlands, and undertook to send a postcard to each of these. They also gave me an introduction to the proprietor of an hotel whom they knew, in which they asked him to give me a bed; and thus armed I succeeded at last. It was high time too, for at nine o'clock everyone had to be at home. In the hotel everything was dark, for there was no gas in the town. At last I could lie down on my bed, and had a good rest, although I could not sleep a wink. I was too tired and had seen and experienced too much that day.
The next morning at six I was out and about again. I had not been able to get any breakfast, for the people themselves had nothing. The Germans had called at all the hotels and shops requisitioning everything in stock to feed the thousands who had invaded Liège like so many locusts. The inhabitants practically starved during those days, and carefully saved up bits of bread already as hard as bricks. It was a good thing that the night before I had eaten something at the nunnery, for although at a shop I offered first one, and later on two francs for a piece of bread, I could not get any.
45 All the forts thundered away again, and the guns of the Germans were also busy on the citadel and the various surrounding heights. Already early in the morning a terrible and suffocating smoke of fire and gunpowder hovered over Liège. The smoke came down also from the burning villages, like Bressoux, on the slopes of the hills near Liège. The flames flared up from the houses and offered a melancholy sight.
German officers told me, with full particulars, how the inhabitants of those burning villages had offered German soldiers poisoned cocoa, coffee, and cigarettes, for which crime three hundred civilians had been shot during the night in a Liège square.
As even high officers told me those things, not without some emotion, I began to believe them and wrote something about them to my paper. But what was made clear to me at a later visit! That there was not a word of truth in the whole story of that poisoning; that on that day and in that square no shooting had taken place; that a couple of days before the population had been ordered to leave their houses within two hours without any reason being given; and afterwards several houses had simply been burned down.
The Liège people were already up and about, and wandered through the streets full of fear, for all sorts of rumours were heard—that civilians were murdered, the town was to be burned down, and that a start would be made very soon. As they looked at those burning hamlets yonder they believed the rumours, and went nearly mad for fear; the men as well as the women could not help46 themselves, and wept. During the night various posters were stuck on the walls about military action. The following is the translation of one of these:—
"The municipal Government of Liège remind their fellow-citizens, and all staying within this city, that international law most strictly forbids civilians to commit hostilities against the German soldiers occupying the country.
"Every attack on German troops by others than the military in uniform not only exposes those who may be guilty to be shot summarily, but will also bring terrible consequences on leading citizens of Liège now detained in the citadel as hostages by the Commander of the German troops. These hostages are:—
"1. The Right Rev. Rutten, bishop of Liège.
"2. Kleyer, burgomaster of Liège.
"3. Grégoire, permanent deputy.
"4. Armand Fléchet, senator.
"5. Van Zuylen, senator.
"6. Eduard Peltzer, senator.
"7. Colleaux, senator.
"8. de Ponthière, member of the Town Council.
"9. Van Hoeyaerden, member of the Town Council.
"10. Falloise, alderman.
"Bishop Rutten and Mr. Kleyer are allowed to leave the citadel for the present, but remain at the disposition of the German commanders as hostages.
"We beseech all residents in the municipality to guard the highest interests of all the inhabitants and of those who are hostages of the German Army, and not to commit any assault on the soldiers of this army.
"We remind the citizens that by order of the general commanding the German troops, those who have arms in their possession must deliver them immediately to the authorities at the Provincial Palace under penalty of being shot.
"The Acting Burgomaster,
"V. Henault.
"Liège,
"August 8th."
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Fear reigned everywhere in the bustling streets; people shouted at each other that the villages burned already, that by and by they would start with the town, that all civilians would be killed, and other terrible things. The Germans looked at all this with cynical composure, and when I asked some of them what the truth was, they shrugged their shoulders, said that they knew nothing about it, but that it might be true, because all Belgians were swine who shot at the soldiers or poisoned them. All of them were furious because the Belgians did not allow them to march through their country.
Fugitives arrived from the surrounding villages, who also spoke of nothing but arson, destruction, and murder. They frightened the Liège population still more, hundreds of whom packed up some of their belongings and fled. They stumbled and fell across the barricades in the streets, blinded as they were by fear, and blinded also by the smoke which settled down on the city and polluted the air.
Matters stood so in Liège on the morning of August 9th, when the second day of the occupation by the Germans had not yet passed. The Belgian field army, which had bravely defended the ground under the protection of the forts, and inflicted heavy losses upon the Germans, had to retreat before their superior numbers, leaving the further defence of the Meuse to the forts. But a high price had been paid for Liège, for the German losses were immense, and on the ninth they were still busy burying their dead. The Germans lost many men, especially near Lixhe and the Forts Bachon and Fleron.
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At that moment the possession of Liège was of little advantage to the Germans, as on this 9th of August the Belgians still held all the forts. This was the most important news that I was about to send to The Netherlands, for when I left the Netherland newspapers had published the news wired from Berlin that all the forts had fallen.
But the Germans were efficient, for during the night they had laid down the rails on which in the morning they transported parts of the heavy ordnance that would demolish all the Belgian defences.
A few minutes after I left the town a scene drew my attention. A lady stood there with a little girl; the lady seemed to urge the child to do something to which it objected. She refused to take a bag full of various small parcels pressed upon her, and clutched hold of the lady's skirts. I wanted to know what was the matter, got a little nearer, and was amazed to hear them both speak Netherland. I could not help asking what the trouble was and whether I might be of service.
"No, no, sir," the lady said. "Oh, oh, it is so terrible! By and by the Germans will burn Liège and kill us all. She is the little daughter of my brother at Maastricht, and came to visit us a few days before war broke out, but now she will be killed too, for she refuses to go away."
"But, madame, you do not mean to send that child to Maastricht by itself?"
"It must be done, surely, it must be done! That is her only chance of escape, and if she stops here she will be killed with the rest of us. Oh!... oh!..."
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"But really, madame, that is only senseless gossip of the people. You need not be afraid, the Germans will not be so cruel as all that!"
"Not? Oh! they are sure to do it. All the villages are burning already. The smoke suffocates us here. In Bressoux there is not a house left standing, and in other villages all civilians have been killed, men, women, and children. Not even the tiniest babies escaped.... Oh!... and now it is Liège's turn!"
I knew about Bressoux. I had seen the flames burst out from many houses, and I had reliable information also from other villages about the slaughter that took place there, although this lady of course exaggerated when she said that "not even the tiniest babies escaped."
Need I say that I did all I could to make the woman a little more reasonable, and make her understand that it would not do to let a child of ten walk by itself from Liège to Maastricht, and least of all in these dire times. But I could not make her see this, and this instance proves all the more, perhaps, how upset the inhabitants of Liège were that morning; they were nearly out of their senses for fear.
Of course I did not allow the little girl to go by herself, but took her with me. It was a wearying expedition in the excessive heat of that day. Very soon the child was no longer able to carry her small belongings, and, though already sufficiently loaded myself, I had to take her bundle as well. She was scarcely able to walk more than a thousand yards at a stretch, and had then to sit down on the grass by50 the roadside and rest. She did not quite understand what was going on, but she had an undefined feeling of fear on that long, deserted road, where we did not meet anybody except some well-hidden or stealthily moving German patrols who suddenly pointed their rifles at us.
After the explanations required of us they allowed us to go on. The incessant roar of the guns made the girl tremble for fear, and the stinging smoke made her cough. After much trouble we got at last as far as Herstal, where I had promised her a short rest.
This fine large village, actually a suburb of Liège, was quite deserted, not a living being was to be seen. I entered shops and cafés, called at the top of my voice, but got no reply anywhere. I was inclined to believe that everybody had fled. And they would have been quite right too, for huge columns of smoke rose up from the heights around the place, four or five in a row, after a booming and rolling peal like thunder had seemed to rend the sky.
The German artillery had taken up their positions here, and bombarded the forts in their immediate neighbourhood. These did not fail to answer, and rained shells on the enemy's batteries. One heard their hissing, which came nearer and nearer, until they fell on the slopes or the tops of the hills and burst with a terrific explosion. Many a time we saw this happen only a few hundred yards away. Then the air trembled, and I felt as if my legs were blown from underneath me. Broken windows too fell clattering on the "stoeps."
We entered another café, and once more I shouted51 for the inhabitants at the top of my voice. At last I heard a feeble sound somewhere in the hall, which I entered, but as I saw no one there, I called out once more. Then I heard distinctly, and knew whence the answer came. I opened a door, behind which stairs led to the cellar, and from there I was at last able to speak to some of the Herstal people. I heard that all of them stayed in their cellars for fear of the bombardment.
My request to allow the child to stay at the café for half an hour was granted, and I went through the village towards the place whence the German batteries sent their destructive fire. At last I got as far as the top of a hill, from which I could see two forts shrouded in a cloud of smoke, which was also the case with the German batteries.
I could not stop there long, for I was actually within range. I saw a number of shells explode and twice hit a farmhouse, which was destroyed for the greater part. So I returned as quickly as possible to my little protégée, and went on with her, following the road as far as the canal, and then along this to Maastricht.
On one of the hills, slightly to the south of Haccourt, on the west bank of the Meuse and the canal, a German battery was firing at Fort Pontisse. The gunners there were quite kind, and they felt no fear at all, for although they shelled the fort continuously, it seemed that nothing was done by way of reply to their fire. The shells from the fort flew hissing over our heads, in the direction of Lixhe, which proved that Fort Pontisse was still chiefly busy with the pontoon-bridge at that place.
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Until now we had walked along the right bank of the canal, until we crossed one of the many bridges. The little girl was well-nigh exhausted; from time to time I gave her a rest, and then again I carried her a part of the way.
A good many soldiers were lying round about the high cement factory of Haccourt. The factory itself seemed to be used as a station for observations, for suddenly a voice roared from a top window: "Stop those people!" And we were stopped and taken to a small table where three officers were sitting drinking wine. The colonel asked for my papers, which he did not consider sufficient, as I had no passport from some German military authority. So I drew out again the bridge-commander's scrap of paper which said that I was permitted to go from Lixhe to Visé.
"Is this then the road to Visé?"
"No, sir, I am returning from there."
"Where then is Visé?"
"That way, sir!"
"That way? But how did you get here then?"
"You see, sir, the bridge across the Meuse has been destroyed, and in order to get back I had to walk first towards ... towards ... Liège ... and ... and ... and then they ferried me over somewhere down there, and told me that I had to go along the canal to get to Maastricht."
"Is that so? Well, it is not very clear! And that little girl?"
"That is a Netherland girl, sir, who was staying at her aunt's at Liège ... I mean to say at Visé, and whom I take now with me to Maastricht."
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The officer went on shaking his head at my answers, and I felt as if this might be the end of my fine little adventure. But I could not tell him that I had gone to Liège with that permit for Visé!
At Fort Pontisse or Lierce they seemed to have noticed that the factory was a station for observation. As the officer was still thinking about my case, one of those infernal monster shells crashed down among a group of soldiers, only some yards away. Those who were not hit ran away, but they came back soon, and took up seven or eight comrades, whom they carried into the factory. I shuddered when I saw what had happened, and through the shock the sight gave me I involuntarily jerked my arms.
"Stand still!" the officer thundered.
He looked for a moment at the spot where the deaths happened, from which the victims were carried away, and then suddenly asked in a kinder tone of voice:
"Is there any further news about the war in The Netherlands?"
I saw that I must take advantage of his changed mood and his curiosity, and I hastened to reply:
"Yes, that the French are advancing towards Liège, and that the British have landed in Belgium."
"What?"
"It is as I tell you!"
"But are you sure? Where are the French now, and where did the British land?"
"Well, all the Netherland papers have extensive official reports about it. The French are now at Namur and the British landed troops at Ostend...."
"Wait! wait! wait!"
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Quickly he summoned an orderly and gave some orders, and a few minutes later four more officers drew round the table, on which a large map of Belgium was displayed. Their tone became at once charmingly sweet and kind, and a soldier offered me some lemonade from small bottles kept cool in a basin filled with cold water.
I did not feel very comfortable after what had happened to those soldiers who lost their lives so cruelly sudden, or in any case had been seriously wounded, while the officers took little notice of them. But it was desirable to behave as discreetly as possible, and so to get a permit to Maastricht.
I had to repeat everything about the advance of the French and the landing of the British, whilst they followed my story on the map. But I was soon in a cold sweat, for of course I knew practically nothing, neither of the French nor of the British, and each time when one of the officers pressed for details I was in mortal fear that I might contradict myself. But I stuck to my guns until the end, and assured them that the French had crossed the Belgian frontier near Givet, and were now near Namur, whereas the British, disembarking at Ostend, had advanced as far as Ghent.
As soon as they had got all the information they required, the commanding officer ordered a patrol of cyclists of six men to leave their kit and rifles behind, but to take a Browning, and deliver a rapidly written letter at Liège.
They were now very friendly, and spoke even with great kindliness about the Netherlanders in55 general. They let me proceed also on my way to Maastricht, giving me their best wishes.
My little protégée was, however, soon very tired and complained that her feet ached. I had to carry her for nearly a mile and a half before we arrived at the Netherland Custom House, where I left her behind, as she was now safe. I went on to Maastricht alone, wired to my paper, and then saw the worried, but soon extremely happy parents of the little girl. They went at once to the Netherland frontier to take their child home.
I had succeeded. I had been in Liège, the first foreign journalist who got there after her fall, and was able to contradict the numerous reports about the conquest of the forts which had made the round of the newspapers for several days.
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