Later, when the electric wires and underground mines were installed, the matter was differently managed. By a carefully-organized plan, the boys were able to pass over in companies of twenty, thirty, and more at a time, each one contributing his share to the large bribe by which the sentinels were bought off.
Once, when, before this rare privilege was wholly withdrawn, my companion was permitted to go by motor into Holland on business, he was surprised to meet, in the little Dutch town of Nispen, a Belgian acquaintance whom he believed to be in Brussels. He and thirty companions had been safely conducted over the frontier the night before! Three thousand one hundred francs, one hundred from each member of the party, had secured them this easy passage. The youths, now free and eager for revenge, were glad to regain liberty at so small a price, and be able to join their colours. While he was relating this in the street, he noticed a crowd gathered about two German soldiers, unresistingly arrested by the Dutch police.
The young Belgian, on seeing them, uttered an exclamation: “Mon Dieu!” he said. “Those are our sentinels!—the men who led us over last night!” They hastened to the group, and the soldiers, recognizing him, grinned and nodded in a friendly manner.
“What are you doing here?” he asked them genially, for the men were evidently good-natured creatures, not reared in the army, whose military sympathies were apparently no deeper than their uniforms.
“Got tired of it over there!” returned one, still smiling. “We are not so free as you are, but we can wait for that more comfortably here than in Belgium!”
During the summer of 1916 the inhabitants of Brussels, weary of suffering and the “hope deferred which maketh the heart sick,” began a rather forced effort to brighten their existence. When, after a bitterly gloomy winter, the first peep of green became visible in the Bois, it seemed as though a tremor of new life passed through the city. War, with its ever-recurring calamities and disappointments, had come to be looked on as an unalterable affliction, which must be endured with patience until some unforeseen and unimaginable event should bring it to an end. Confidence in early and rapid victory had gradually given place to a less definite though stubborn belief in final triumph; but now even this was less openly expressed. War, in fact, became a tacitly avoided subject of conversation. The tedious communiqués, giving only such details as the Government thought fit to present, were no longer discussed, even by bereaved and serious folk whose thoughts were ever at the front. We who, as yet, were spared the crape worn by so many, began to frequent tennis and golf clubs, where, while healthfully exercising on the courts, or “chasing a pill through a pasture”—as the Irishman defined golf!—we tried to forget that the air we breathed came to us over acres of death.
The Bois became alive again with children and pleasure-seeking couples; and although there were no horses to drive or ride, boats were launched, as of old, on the beautiful lake surrounding an island café, which reopened its doors to serve, not the dainty repasts of former days,—edibles were far too dear!—but tea and coffee of sorts, while procurable, and a light home-made beer. One lump of sugar was allowed to each cup, and no appeal or bribe could secure more. But in a short time the place was crowded, not only by Belgians, but German soldiers who mingled freely with them, seeking relief from the dull routine of their days of rest.
One of the touching sights of this little island retreat was that of these weary, battle-soiled men, to whose clothes still clung the mud and grime of the trenches, delightedly visiting the dovecot, where, for ten centimes, they procured grain to feed the pigeons. These pure white birds, emblems of peace and beauty, would settle on their hands, shoulders, and heads; and through their snowy plumage the men’s gruesome, green-grey uniforms appeared like the thought of an evil mind, marring the spiritual accord between God and man.
This reawakening of the people was a natural reaction—the demand of life for its own rights. As with individuals, sorrow’s tedium had evoked in the entire occupied country a certain helpless resignation to circumstances that after two years’ patient endurance and discouragement offered no promise of change. Oppression and deprivation had become permanent elements of existence. Tragedies even failed to impress us so deeply as of yore; incidents of heart-breaking pathos no longer brought tears to the eyes of those who could still dress warmly in winter, and indulge adequately, if not luxuriously, in the high-priced food. All had made such sacrifices for the poorer classes as each considered possible without serious menace to himself. Many had given the last centime they could spare, others substantial donations which they probably did not miss.