He forgot to ask whether I wanted to eat—he was absent-minded in that way—but I felt like him, and avoiding the Grande Place we walked by hazard to a part of the city where some fires were burning. The sky was reddened and we smelt smoke, and presently felt the heat of flames.
“What new devilry?” asked Brand. “Can’t these people enjoy Peace? Hasn’t there been enough violence?”
“Possibly a bonfire,” I said, “symbolical of joy and warmth after cold years!”
Coming closer, I saw that Brand was right. Black figures like dancing devils were in the ruddy glare of a savage fire up a side street of Ghent. In other streets were other fires. Close to where we stood was an old inn called the Hôtel de la Demie-Lune—the Hotel of the Half-Moon—and its windows had been heaved out, and inside the rooms Belgian soldiers and citizens were flinging out tables and chairs and planks and wainscoting to feed the bonfire below, and every time the flames licked up to the new fuel there were shouts of joy from the crowd.
“What does it mean?” asked Brand, and a man in the crowd told us that the house had been used as the headquarters of a German organisation for “Flemish Activists”—or Flamagands, as they were called—whose object was to divide the Walloons, or French-speaking Belgians, from the Flemings, in the interests of Germany.
“It is the people’s revenge for those who have tried to sow seeds of hatred among them,” said the man.
Other people standing by spoke disapprovingly of the scene.
“The Germans have made too many fires in this war,” said an elderly man in a black hat with a high crown and broad brim, like a portrait by Franz Hals. “We don’t want to destroy our own houses now the enemy has gone. That is madness.”
“It seems unnecessary!” said Brand.
As we made our way back we saw the light of other fires, and heard the noise of smashing glass and a splintering of wood-work. The mob was sacking shops which had traded notoriously with the Germans. Out of one alley a man came running like a hunted animal. We heard his breath panting as he passed. A shout of “Flamagand! Flamagand!” followed him, and in another second a mob had caught him. We heard his death-cry, before they killed him like a rat.