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Though sundry hundreds of thousands of Germans had gone
that way, no burnt houses or squandered fields marked their wake; and
the few peasants who had not run away at the approach of the dreaded
Allemands were back at work, trying to gather their crops in barrows or
on their backs, since they had no work-cattle left. For these the
Germans had taken from them, to the last fit horse and the last colt.
At Binche we laid up two nights and a day for the curing of our
blistered feet. Also, here we bought our two flimsy bicycles and our
decrepit dogcart, and our still more decrepit mare to haul it; and, with
this equipment, on Wednesday morning, bright and early, we made a fresh
start, heading now toward Maubeuge, across the French boundary.
Current rumor among the soldiers at Binche--for the natives, seemingly
through fear for their own skins, would tell us nothing--was that at
Maubeuge the onward-pressing Germans had caught up with the withdrawing
columns of the Allies and were trying to bottle the stubborn English
rear guard.


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