Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1918-08-02
CHAPTER VIII.
Nine Days in Luxembourg.

Nine Days In Luxembourg.
I was now heading northwest and /
thought that by keeping that course
l would get out of Luxembourg and
into Belgium, where 1 expected to be
a little better off, because the people
of Luxembourg were practically the
same as Germans.
One of the experiences 1 had in Lux
embourg which 1 shall never forget
occurred the first day that 1 spent
there. 1 had Travelled all night and I
was feeling very weak. / came to a
small wood with plenty of low under
brush, and picked out a thick clump
of brushes which was not in line with
any paths, crawled in and lay down
to spend the day.
The could just reach me through
an opening in the trees above and I
took off all my clothes except my shirt
and hung them on the bushes to dry
in the sun. AS the sun moved 1 moved
the clothes around correspondingly, be-
cause tired as 1 was 1 could take only
catnapS.
AAlo oIIOAhOOh L 0NOhC OdO
of these maps with a start. There were
voices not a dozen feet from me! My
first impulse was to jump to my feet
and sell my life as dearly as 1 coulo,
but on second thought 1 decided to
look before 1 leapt. Peeping through
the underbrush I could just discern two
men calmly chopping down a tree, and
0a-xrorc;nr on @h0u urar1yo1 %hnnEod
my lucky stars that l had not jumped
up on my first impulse, for 1 was ap-
parently quite safe as long as I lay
where l was.
1t then occurred to me that if the
tree upon which they were working
should happen to fall in my direction
it would crush me to death! 1t was
tall enough to reach me and big enough
to kill me if it landed in my direction
and as 1 could only see the heads of
the men who were chopping it down, I
was unable to tell which way they
planned to have it fall.
There was this much in my favor;
the chances of the tree falling in just
my direction were not very great and
there was more than an even chance
that the men would be wise enough to
fell it so that it would not, because If
it landed in the brushes the task of
trimming the branches from the trunk
would be so much harder.
But even without this feeling of Sc
curity, there was really nothing else l
could do but wait and see what fate
had in store for me. / lay there watch
ing the top of the tree for more thar
an hour. Time and time again I saw it
sway and fancied it was coming my
direction, and it was all I could do to
keep my place, but a moment later l
would hear the crash of the mems
axes, and I knew that my imagination
had played me a trick.
l was musing on the sorry plight l
was in-weak, nearly starving to death,
a refugee in a hostile country, and
waiting patiently to see which way a
tree was going to fall, when there
came q loud crack, and / saw the top
of the tree sway and fall almost OPP
posite to the place where l lay! l had
guessed right.
Later I heard some children's voices
and again peering through the under
brush l saw that they had brought h
men their lunch. You can't realize how
1 felt to see them eating their lunch
so near at hand, and to know that,
hungry as I was, I could have none of
it. 1 was getting tempted to go boldly
up ts them and take a chance OF get
ting a share, but 1 did not know
whether they were Germans or not, and
1 had gone through too much to risk
my liberty ever for food. 1 swallowed
my hunger instead.
Shortly afterwards it began to rain
and about 4 o'clock the men left, /
crawled out as fast as I could and
scurried around looking for crumbs,
but found none, and when darkness
CAM 1 went on my way once more.
That night 1 came to a river and as
it was the first time my clothes had
been dry in a long time, I thought l
would try to keep them that way as
long as possible. 1 accordingly took
off all my things and made them into
two bundles, planning to carry
load across and then swim back for