If, in the course of the unjust war which we are now enduring, it happens that French or Belgian troops bring German prisoners to our city, I beseech you to maintain your calm and dignity. These prisoners, wounded or not, I shall take under my protection, became I say that they are not really to blame for acts which they have been ordered to do under threat of cruel punishment.
Yes, I say I shall take them under my protection because my heart bleeds to think that they, too, have left behind those dear to them—an aged father, an old mother, a wife, children, sisters, or sweethearts whom separation has plunged into deepest anguish. Do not forget when you see these prisoners passing by, I beg of you, and permit yourself to shout at and insult them. Keep, on the contrary, the respectful silence appropriate to thinking men. Fellow citizens, if, in these grave and painful circumstances, you will listen to my advice, if you will recall that it is now thirty years that I have been your burgomaster and during all that time of hard work I have never asked a favor of you, I feel sure that you will obey my request and, on your side, you may be sure that my gratitude will not be wanting.
A. REYNAEKT, Burgomaster.
Although war had not touched Courtrai as yet, the rumor of it, more terrifying often than the thing itself, had swept through all Flanders. Along the level highways leading into Courtrai trooped whole families carrying babies and what few household things they could fling together in blankets. Covered wagons overflowed with men, women, and children. The speed with which rumor spread was incredible. In one village a group of half-drunken men, who insisted on jeering the Germans were put at the head of a column and compelled to march several miles before they were released. The word at once ran the length of dozens of highroads that the Germans "were taking with them every one between fifteen and fifty." I heard the same warning repeated on several of the roads about Courtrai by men and women, panting, red-faced, stumbling blindly on from they knew not what. Later, I met the same people, straggling back to their villages, good-naturedly accepting the jibes of those who had stayed behind.
A linen manufacturer who lived in the village of Deerlyck, not far from Courtrai, where German scouts had been reported, kindly asked me to come out and spend the night. For several miles we drove through the densely populated countryside, past rows of houses whose occupants all seemed to know him.
Women ran out to stop him and rattled away in Flemish; there were excited knots of people every few steps, and the heads kept turning this way and that, as if we were all likely to be shot any minute. We drove into the courtyard of the solid old Flemish house—a house in which he and his father before him had lived, with tiny rooms full of old paintings, garden, stable, and hothouse packed close in the saving Belgian fashion, and all as spick and span and shining as if built yesterday—and then into the street again. It was interesting to watch this square little man roll sturdily along, throwing out his stout arms impatiently and flinging at the nervous villagers—who treated him almost as a sort of feudal lord—guttural Flemish commands to keep cool and not make fools of themselves.
All at once, coming out of nowhere, a wave of panic swept down the street like a squall across a still pond.
"Bing—Bang!" went wooden shutters over windows, the stout housewives flinging the bars home and gathering up their children. Doors slammed, windows closed—it was like something in a play—and almost as soon as it takes to tell it there was not a head, not a sound; the low houses were one blank wall, and we stood in the street alone.
Just such scenes as this people must have known in the days when Europe was a general battle-ground—when the French or the Spanish came into Flanders; just such villages, just such housewives slamming shutters close—you can see them now in old Flemish pictures.
Slowly doors and windows opened, heads poked out. The little street filled, the knots of people gathered again. We walked up and down, the linen merchant flinging out his arms and his reassurances more and more vigorously. Half an hour passed, and then, all at once, it came again. And this time it was real. The Germans were coming!