On the mountain ash the bright red berries dangled in clumps like
Christmas bells, and some of the leaves of the elm still clung to their
boughs; so that the wide yellow road was dappled like a wild-cat's back
with black splotches of shadow. Only when we curved through some
village that had been the scene of a skirmish or a reprisal did the
roofless shells and the toppled walls of the houses, standing gaunt and
ugly in the sharp sunlight, make us realize that we were still in the
war tracks.
As nearly as we could tell from our brief scrutiny a great change had
come over the dwellers in southern Belgium. In August they had been
buoyant and confident of the ultimate outcome and very proud of the
behavior of their little army. Even when the Germans burst through the
frontier defenses and descended on them in innumerable swarms they were,
for the most part, not daunted by those evidences of the invaders'
numerical superiority and of their magnificent equipment. The more
there were of the Germans the fewer of them there would be to come back
when the Allies, over the French border, fell on them.
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