Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-07-16

like hunted animals, and now that
Antwerp was fallen they emerged
and trailed their miserieS along the
road into Brussels. Some of those
haggard eyes had looked on while
Eppeghem was destroyed and had
witnessed the dreadful deeds at
Aerschot, or at BOortmeerbeek, the
horrors of Hofstade or of Sempst.
The scattered throngs moved on,
dumb, heavy, slow, without a word,
without a cry, without a hope, be-
yond the power OF expression or
the need of il any more, treading
a silent calvary OF which no human
means could voice the pain. There
were men bent beneath their packs.
and bowed under a far heavier load
of despair; women with wan faces,
whereon the stain of futile tears
had long since dried, shawls over
their heads, figures OF utter mis-
erySand children, their smiles gone,
trotting in the mud beside their ell
ders, glancins up now and then
with that most terrible of all ex-
pressions the human countenance
, can aSsume-that look of terror in
the eyes of little children who for
the first time in this our tragic life
realize that there are calamities
which their mothers have no power
to avert. The children dumped
along in their sabot, which the
Flemish nomatopoetically call
kiompen; the elder among them
helping the younger, sometimes
carrying them in their thin, pathet-
ic arms.
Day after day and all through the
night, in rain and mud and cold,
they trooped on in those drear Oc-
tober days of 1914, with no place to
go, without hope. almost without
the will TO hope. They trooped on
in wooden shoes, or in no shoes at
all, and they bore in their arms, or
on their backs, their little all tied
up in bundles. Some of them, the
less unfortunate. had carts, and
since they had no longer any patient
dogs to draw them they patiently
drew them themselves, straining
against the ropes, their forms bowed
in labor.
Now and then when some Ger
man officer in arrogant indifference,
muffied in the great fur collar of his
gray coat, swept by in his gray mo-
-
stolid and with british insensibility,
marched by. slavishly singing their
songs. they turned out into the
bitches and waited. and when the SOL
diers had passed they climbed back
onto the highway and plodded on
again.
Along the Road to Antwerp
There were sights to see along the
Antwerp road in those days, German
troops coming back from the siege,
with long trains of numbering wag-
ons filled with knapsacks and rifles,
helmets. belts, sabres, all the sal
wage they had economically gather
ed; ruined villages, like little VII
vorde. a spot sacred to the English
speaking race, for there William
Tyndale was burned for having
translated the Bible into our
tongue; ruined houses, their win
dows broken in, their walls rid
died with bullets or yawning in
gaping holes torn by shells, vomited
their debris into the streets, and all
the beautiful ash trees that used to
line the road feIled to clear the way
for cannon balls, some. indeed, fell
ed by the cannon balls themselves.
Near Eppeghem, the trenches the
Belgians had abandoned stretching
across the yellow fields where as
paragus-the famous "asperges de
MaIines'-had been growing, the
fields that had been so downy, so
feathery, all trampled down in the
rage that had scared them with its
hot breath. In the little inches in
the trench walls there were crusts Of
mouldy bread, a tin cup or a can
teen. Belgian kepis and knapsacks
were strewn a&out. and in one place
a subterranean room had been hol-
lowed out. the garlands of paper
flowers still on it's clayey walls and
a table with matches, a lamp, a bot
tie and the remains of the last sup
per-all as they had left il when at
last they had to fly. And there was
one sentient thing, a dog lying in
one of the caverns; the poor fellow
stared with great pathetic eyes but
refused TO come out. and lay wait
ing for the master who would never
more return.
Eppeghem was a silent place of
ruins; not a roof remained. not a
house that had not been ravaged
by fire; the pretty gray old church
but a heap of ruins. The body of a
horse was lying in the street, it's
stiff legs sticking up in the air;
hideous cats prowled among the
ruins, and everywhere there were
black bottles. thousands of them,
emptied of their wine by the Ger
mans in their guzzling.
1t was so. too. at Malines. empty
bottles everywhere, ranged on win
dow stills, on door steps, or rolling
in the streets. evidence Of an insa-
table thirst German soldiers, in
that ugly field gray. were sinking
out of houses hiding bottles under
their tunics. The town was de-
serted of all, save now and then
some girl picking up bits of wood
with which to make up a fire, or a
few women. bent over the piles OF
debris. picking II over. trying to
rescue something from the rubbish,
all that remained TO them.
The beautiful Grand place was
but a heap of charred brick and
twisted iron. and while the cathedral
was standing, there were great holes
yawning in its walls and its carven
stone was all broken, and every pane
Of the stained glass. all that remain
ed of a beautiful lost art, was shat
tered to bits and quite gone. and its
chimes. under the magic hand Of