On Saturday, Nov. 30, I arrived at Trier on a second-class ticket at about 10:30 P.M. There I bought a third-class ticket and boarded a train leaving about 11:10 P.M. and reached Luxemburg at about 12:15 A.M. I did not go into the railroad station, but, trusting to my papers, boarded a military train leaving at 12:45 A.M., going over Longwy to Longuyon, where I arrived at 3:30 A.M., Sunday. There an official whose name I do not know took me to a troop train and made a place for me in the brake box. I left the train at X and went on foot to H (the Great Headquarters,) where I reported myself to the Chief of Police.
I recommend that a sharper control be exercised on the station platform at Luxemburg, as it is a simple matter to avoid the only control which is at the ticket gate, by simply not going out and therefore not having to come in.
The lot of the professional spy will be harder in the future. Meanwhile, I expect to shake the dust of the German Great Headquarters from my reportorial feet early tomorrow morning, for pedestrianism is not a safe pastime in the war zone.
Story of the Man Who Fired on the Rheims Cathedral
II.
W ITH THE GERMAN ARMY BEFORE RHEIMS, Dec. 5.—Eating a ham sandwich while squinting through an artillery telescope at the cathedral and hearing the man who fired the famous shots tell all about it was the unique combination I experienced today, and in retrospect the ham sandwich stands out as the most important feature, for it symbolizes the morale of the men before Rheims.
The post of observation was in a sometime French fort, now riddled by French shells, on the crest of a hill affording a fine panoramic view of the city, and my sightseeing predecessors here had included the Imperial Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg; Muktar Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador to Berlin; Major Langhorne, the American Military Attaché, and other celebrities.
Rheims Cathedral was said to be about four miles away, but through the powerful magnifying telescope (of the scissors type and so contrived that only its two eyes peered over the breastworks while the observer was completely hidden from view) it showed up as clearly as Caruso through an opera glass. The top of one of the two towers had a decidedly moth-eaten appearance—it looked as if one of the corners had been shot away, and the roof was evidently gone, but otherwise the exterior of the cathedral looked—through the telescope—to be in a good state of preservation and likely to enjoy a ripe old age. No French observer was seen on the cathedral towers, and I was informed by First Lieut. Wengler of the Heavy Artillery that none had been since his admonitory shells had carried their iron warning to climb down. A staff officer of the —— Division had introduced him to me as "the friend of the Rheims Cathedral," explaining that it probably wouldn't be standing today but for him.
