"Tout brûlé!"
Hitherto the Belgian woman had not looked up, nor changed her listless attitude. Now she lifted her empty expressionless eyes, and hoarsely iterated her parrot-cry. The suckling at her breast whimpered and let go the nipple. She glanced at it, saying in her own thick Flemish tongue:
"Daar is geen melk."[1]
[1] "There is no milk."
She rocked the baby for whom she had no milk. Its feeble whimper was not stilled. She went on to that accompaniment:
"De Duischer kwamen. Zy hebben alles gebrand! De geburen,—mijn voder—mijn man is gedood! Zy hebben hem in het vuur geworpen!"[2]
[2] "The Germans came. They burned everything. The neighbours, and my father, and my husband are dead. They threw them into the fire."
The baby's whimper became a wail of feeble protest. It fought and struggled frantically under the old red swathing shawl. The shawl loosened, slid to the floor, and the wizened arms rose free and jerking. One arm, tightly bandaged below the elbow, ended in a raw and bloody stump. She regarded it with her drained-out stare, not trying to replace the strappings that had bound it, saying in the heavy voice of a sleep-walker:
"Dees ook hebben ze gedaan. God sta ons bij!"[3]
[3] "This too they did. God help us!"