We already had remarked this fact--that in every desolated
village cats were thick enough; but invariably the sharp-nosed, wolfish-
looking Belgian dogs had disappeared along with their masters. And it
was so in Montignies St. Christophe.
On a roadside barricade of stones, chinked with sods of turf--a
breastwork the French probably had erected before the fight and which
the Germans had kicked half down--I counted three cats, seated side by
side, washing their faces sedately and soberly.
It was just after we had gone by the barricade that, in a shed behind
the riddled shell of a house, which was almost the last house of the
town, one of our party saw an old, a very old, woman, who peered out at
us through a break in the wall. He called out to her in French, but she
never answered--only continued to watch him from behind her shelter. He
started toward her and she disappeared noiselessly, without having
spoken a word. She was the only living person we saw in that town.
Just beyond the town, though, we met a wagon--a furniture dealer's
wagon--from some larger community, which had been impressed by the
Belgian authorities, military or civil, for ambulance service.
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