Aged 17, Fernand L——, of Brussels, together with fifteen others of his school class of twenty, joined the ranks as volontaires and served through Namur. Captured by the Germans in a farmhouse where he was scouting, he contrived to escape and reach his native town, where the now famous burgomaster, the valiant M. Max, got his papers viséd. By asserting that he was only fifteen years old, and therefore not liable to military service, he finally reached Cherbourg, and is now on his way back to the front, hoping to join some regiment at Calais.
A charming boy, full of enthusiasm for the war and the conviction that we shall soon be marching into Berlin, his one regret, when he heard how the hospital equipment had had to be abandoned to the enemy, was that he had not helped himself to a much-needed blanket.
"Had I but known," he exclaimed, "I would have taken four!"
Fernand L—— was clad in a wonderful combination of garments that he seemed to have gleaned on his journeyings; most remarkable amongst them were the green knitted socks and pair of canvas shoes which some Good Samaritan had given him at Ostend, in those days when even the supply of anæsthetics was apt to run low. Proudest of all was he of the fact that he had once spent a few days in Liverpool to play in a football match, which fact, he felt, bound him to his allies more than any of the forced ties of war. His companion, a few years his senior, who spoke seven languages, was a good-looking youth with a radiant smile. They had been together through various escapades, and were full of the atrocities of the Germans, which, alas! seem authentic enough.
Once when they were fleeing they had come to a deserted village where a farmer gave them shelter. His only daughter had been brutally mutilated and murdered before her own parents because, in resisting the embraces of an officer, she scratched out one of his eyes.
"They cut off her breasts and carried away a foot as a trophy," was the tale they told.
As they got out, the Belgians, in token of gratitude, pressed into our hands the little paper flags of the Allies that they were wearing and buttons from their coats. Then, seizing a notebook from my pocket, Fernand L—— inscribed their names and addresses at Bruges, exacting at the same time promises that we would call and see them, or their families, on our way "to the Rhine in a few months"!
The well-guarded lines, the ammunition trains, the big guns and horses and other paraphernalia of war—how real it all begins to seem!
At Abbeville, where we explored the shops and camps and churches, a nasty rumour came through, via two cavalry officers, that the Germans are at Calais, and many of the townsfolk appeared at their doors to bewail their fate.