The latter himself told me that he was released in order to instruct the vicars in the eighteen parishes of his deanery that they should inform their parishioners that the whole village would be burned and the inhabitants killed if the railway-line should be broken up, no matter whether it were done by Belgian soldiers or others.
After I had been incarcerated for about two hours I was taken to the commanding officer, Major Krittel, or rather to one of his subordinates, Captain Spuer, who was having a violent altercation with his chief. The captain appeared to insist with great force that the whole place should be burned down and all the prisoners shot. But the major seemed to be a tolerably reasonable man, tried to soothe the captain, and at last put down his foot, saying that he had had enough. The captain, a rude, fat fellow, sat down at a desk and bellowed at me:
"Here, swine!"
I did not budge.
"Here, swine!"
"I am a Netherlander."
"Netherlander? Doesn't matter. Have you got papers? All right. You shan't have those back."
"Then I'll lodge a complaint with the Imperial Governor of Liège, who gave me the papers."
"Swine!"