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The father between bites told us his tale--such a tale as we had heard
dozens of times already and were to hear again a hundred times before
that crowded week ended--he telling it with rolling eyes and lifting
brows, and graphic and abundant gestures. Behind him and us, penning
our table about with a living hedge, stood the leading burghers of
Nivelles, now listening to him, now watching us with curious eyes. And,
as he talked on, the landlord dimmed the oil lamps and made fast the
door; for this town, being in German hands, was under martial law and
must lock and bar itself in at eight o'clock each night. So we sat in a
half light and listened.
They lived, the two Putzeys, at a hamlet named Marchienne-au-Pont, to
the southward. The Germans had come into it the day before at sunup, and
finding the French there had opened fire. From the houses the French
had replied until driven out by heavy odds, and then they ran across the
fields, leaving many dead and wounded behind them. As for the
inhabitants they had, during the fighting, hidden in their cellars.


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