The poor fellow whimpered: "0 Gott! I don't know what I am."
"I'll tell you what you are. You're an American!" exclaimed Van Hee with great gusto. "That's what you are—an American! Get that? An American!"
"Ja, ja ich bin ein Amerikaner!" he eagerly cried ("Yes, yes, I am an American!"), relieved to find himself no longer a man without a country. Had he been told that he was a Hindoo, or an Eskimo, he would have acquiesced as obediently.
But when he was shown an American flag and it began to dawn on him that he had nothing more to fear from his captors, his tenseness relaxed. And when Van Hee said: "As the American consul I shall do what I can for you. What is it you want the most?" a light shone in the German's eyes and he replied:
"I want to go home. I want to see my wife and children."
"I thought you came down here because you wanted to see the war," said Van Hee.
"War!" he gasped, and putting hands up to his eyes as if to shut out some awful sights, he began muttering incoherently about "Louvain," "children screaming," "blood all over his breast," repeating constantly "schrecklich, schrecklich." "I don't want to see any more war. I want to see my wife and my three children!"
"The big guns! Do you hear them?" he said.
"I don't want to hear them," he answered, shaking his head.
"They're killing you Germans by the thousands down there," announced Van Hee. "I should think you would want to get out and kill the French and the English."