"What do you want with him?"
"I am a Netherland journalist, and want to ask the commander's permission to go to Liège."
"Oh, you are a Netherlander; then come along."
They took me to two officers who stood near the bridge, and told them that I "pretended" to be a Netherland journalist. Having proved this by my papers, the officers gave me an escort of three men, who conducted me to the bridge-commander, on the other side of the Meuse.
I had to walk along the very edge of the unstable bridge in order to avoid the wheels of the passing carriages, which shook the whole bridge and made the rather loose boards clatter. In the meantime, at no considerable distance, some shells fell in the Meuse, fired at the bridge from Fort Pontisse. Yet, I did not mind it at all, as all these new experiences stunned me, so to speak; the incessant hellish noises of the batteries, the burning houses, the smoke swooping down, the excited soldiers....
As we crossed the bridge, I asked my escort why these houses were set on fire. I heard then, for the first time, that "they had been shooting," and they told me of cowardly civilians, who shot from the windows at unsuspicious soldiers, or stabbed them treacherously. But of course they had experienced nothing of the kind; it had happened to troops who were now moving ahead. They had, however, taken part in the revenge, and told of it with glittering eyes: how they fired the houses of francs-tireurs and then shot the people who, nearly stifled, appeared at the windows; how in "holy" anger, in order to avenge their comrades, they subsequently entered the houses and destroyed everything. I did not answer, did not know what to think of it, but shuddered, because it was so gruesome.
They told this, while we were waiting on a couple of protruding boards of the pontoon-bridge, so as to allow some extremely wide carts to pass. Once again shells exploded, a couple of hundred yards behind us, and one made a hole in the bank quite near.
"Horrible!" I sighed. "Have they not yet hit the bridge?"
"Oh yes, it has been destroyed already a couple of times, but we shall teach them a lesson! Why did not the Belgians allow us to pass through their country? What can their little army do against us? As soon as a sufficient number have crossed we shall go for these forts, then on to Brussels, and within a fortnight we shall be in Paris. Liège we have taken already."
"It will cost a great many men!"