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Perhaps there were no horses left in the stalls--thanks to either
Belgian foragers or to German--or, if there were horses, no driver would
risk his hide on the open road among the German pack trains and rear
guards. At length we did find a tall, red-haired Walloon who said he
would go anywhere on earth, and provide a team for the going, if we paid
the price he asked. We paid it in advance, in case anything should
happen on the way, and he took us in a venerable open carriage behind
two crow-bait skeletons that had once, in a happier day when hay was
cheaper, been horses.
We drove slowly, taking the middle of the wide Brussels road. On our
right, traveling in the same direction, crawled an unending line of
German baggage wagons and pontoon trucks. On our left, going the
opposite way, was another line, also unending, made up of refugee
villagers, returning afoot to the towns beyond Louvain from which they
had fled four days earlier. They were footsore and they limped; they
were of all ages and most miserable-looking.


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