CHAPTER X
THE BELGIANS’ FIGHT WITH GERMAN HOSTS
[It is hard, in language, to express the thoughts that come to one in contemplating the achievements of the Belgian Army at the outset of the war. Undoubtedly the coming sure defeat of Germany is largely due to the valiant stand which was made when the would-be all-world conquerors overran and ravaged a little, beautiful and inoffensive neutral state. The knell of Prussian doom was sounded first on Belgium’s battlefields. It was believed that at the utmost Belgians could only make a pretence of fighting; but the little army of our brave ally defied and held at bay the braggart hosts of Germany in an almost incredible manner. What happened in those fateful days, which seem so far and yet in reality are so near is told by Soldat François Rombouts, of the 8th Regiment of the Line, Belgian Army.]
I was in the Belgian Army before the war broke out. I was a conscript of the 1913 class, and went to my regiment from the sea. For five years I had been crossing the Atlantic in liners sailing from Antwerp—and how beautiful it was in the summer-time on the blue sea, with the hot sun shining; and how hard and cold in the winter, peering into the grey gales from the crow’s-nest! I loved the sea, and I loved my regiment, especially when I had my rifle in my hands and with my keen sea eyes I could make out the Germans and use them as targets. I do not know how many I shot—I hope and believe a big number—because when they fall it may not be always to your own bullet. But I saw very many of them fall before I was wounded and had to lie in bed for sixteen weeks, helpless, like a child.
Look at my right arm. Here, on the inside, a bullet went in. If it had been an ordinary bullet, like the one you show me—you say the cartridge was given to you by a British Guardsman who was at Landrecies and carried it there with him?—it would have gone through the arm and made only a little hole, which would soon have become well; but the bullet was explosive. See, here at the entrance is the small scar; but at the outside of the arm there is this long and ragged blue mark, because the bullet that struck me was what you call a dum-dum. Feel the wound, it does not hurt me now. That hardness is bone. It was carried away from the flesh and broken, and there it has set and will remain. For many weeks my hand was like this—a bunch, you call it?—because I could not open it out. I was hurt in other ways also by German fire; but I am young—only twenty-two years—and very strong, and I may yet again go back to the Belgian Army. If I do, and we get into Germany—as we shall—for every Belgian life that has been taken we shall take one German, and more; for every Belgian home that has been destroyed we shall burn or destroy one, and more, and for all the innocent women and little children and helpless old men that have been murdered we shall make them pay in German soldiers and in German soil.
I have my mother and sisters still in Belgium, where the German beasts are; and I do not know the truth of them. I pray that they are well; but if I learn that they have come to harm I will never rest until I have had my revenge in Germany. All Belgians will tell you the same as that. How can it be otherwise when they have seen what I have seen—their country run over and beaten down and taken by these German hosts, who have swarmed over it like dirty beasts and fouled it?
How well I remember that night in Antwerp when the war broke out! It was eleven o’clock and the church bells were ringing.
That was the sound of war.
Several days we had been out of barracks, enjoying ourselves; but this night they would not allow us to go out.
My mother and sisters and brothers came, crying. They said, “The Germans will kill you!” But I said, “Shut up! It will not be so. Besides, I am a single man, and so I do not care. It is not as if I had a wife and children.” So they were comforted, and I made myself happy by myself.