In the Line of Battle: Soldiers' Stories of the War

by Unknown

It was terrible and sad. What was to be done? How were our comrades to be saved, to come to us, to be kept from capture or killing by the Germans?

The commander of the company was quick to think and act. He knew that at Namur there were some boats, three or four of them. He ordered a cyclist to go and have the boats sent to Anden, so that the men could cross. And the cyclist went. It seemed so long before the boats came; but they appeared at last, and the soldiers got into them, crowding five and six in one small boat, and then being rowed over the river. All the time the Germans were firing on the company from the big hills which are there; but we could not fire back, and all we could do was to watch our comrades on the other side of the river, walking about and eagerly waiting for the boats. They tumbled into the boats and came across the river to us, and we shouted and laughed when they were near enough for us to get at them, and to help them to jump on to the bank and to say defiance to the German bullets.

There is a railway tunnel at Anden, and we were ordered to go to it. We went. There is a big wood at the tunnel, and from this wood there came a party of Uhlans, fifteen of them, commanded by a lieutenant.

Three or four Belgians fired on the cavalry, who were taken by surprise. The lieutenant was shot in the side, next his heart, and he fell from his horse. The soldiers went up to him to make him prisoner of war, but he did not want to be taken, and he fired on them with his revolver. So it was necessary for them to shoot him, and they did.

When he was killed four soldiers carried him on two rifles, one under his back and one under his legs, to the major of the Belgian battalion, who ordered that he should be buried. So a grave was dug and the lieutenant was buried, and planks were put over him, and he was left there to his rest, and we attended to the German wounded.

After what happened by the railway tunnel we were ordered to make trenches; but the Germans came up and forced us to retire to Namur, an old city and fortress.

We saw many refugees who were flying from the Germans, who had come and stolen their land and plundered it and overrun it like dirty beasts. There were old men and women and children, and it was pitiful to see them; yet it made us fiercer in our fighting with the Germans.

Near Anden I saw a column of refugees, a little line of about thirty-five people, and at the head of them was a man dressed like a tourist, with a soft hat, breeches and leggings. He was looking under trees and all around him, as if taking care of the refugees.

Then, when we had seen this tourist, a boy came up to me on a bicycle, and said, “There is a German spy!”

I called my corporal, and instantly we had soldiers searching in the trees and fields and everywhere; but we did not see another trace of the “tourist,” who was the German spy, though we did not suspect it when we saw him leading the refugees like a shepherd leads his flock.