Just outside Tongres I met a fleet of Red Cross cars loaded with wounded. Cavalry escorted them. I was stopped and ordered to go back, as they expected the Belgians to attack Tongres.
I thought the result of the battle of Haelen rather important, and should have liked to have wired it immediately to my paper. Until now I had always gone on foot, that being the only conveyance which the Germans could not seize. But this time I preferred a bicycle, as the only way to get to The Netherlands on that same day. So I tried at a couple of bicycle-shops to get a second-hand one for love and money. At the first shop I asked:—
"I suppose, madame, that you have an old 'bike' to sell?"
She looked me up and down suspiciously, and then said:
"No, I've none to sell."
I did not fare better at the next. There the answer was:
"I refuse to sell 'bikes' to Germans."
"But, madame, I am not German; I am a Netherlander. I should...."
"I can hear quite well that you are German, and if you were a Netherlander you would not venture on a bike at this moment. If you come here to seize my bikes, I'll deliver them, for I cannot do anything against that, but I refuse to sell them of my own free-will."