Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1918-09-13
CHAPTER XIV.
Observations in a Belgian City.

OUSCTVoLiOHo ii q DSiStoiI Siey
One night shortly before 1 left this
city, our airmen raided the place. ]
didn't venture out of the house at the
time, but the next night 1 thought !
would go out and see what damage
had been done.
When it became dark I left the
house accordingly and mixed with the
crowd, which consisted largely of Ger
mans. 1 went from one place to an.
other to see what our "straffing" had
accomplished. Naturally 1 avoided
speaking to anyone. If a man or
woman appeared about to speak to me,
l Just turned my head and looked or
walked away in some other direction.
1 must have been taken for an IN.
social sort of individual a good many
times, and if / bad encountered the
same person twice l suppose my con.
duct might have aroused suspicion.
1 had a first-class observation of the
damage that was really done by our
bombs. One bomb had landed very
near the main railroad station and il
it had been only thirty yards nearer
would have completely demolished it
AS the station was undoubtedly ou1
airman's objective I was very much
impressed with the accuracy of his
aim. 1t is by no means an easy thing
to hit a building from the air when
you are going at anywhere from fifty
to one hundred miles an hour and are
being shot at from beneath from q
dozen different angles-unless, OF
course, you are taking one of those
desperate chances and flying so low
that you cannot very well miss your
mark and the Huns can't very well
miss you either!
1 walked by the station and mingled
with the crowds which stood in the
entrances. They paid no more at.
tention to me than they did to real Bel
CLANS, and the fact that the lights
were all out in this city at night made
it impossible anyway for anyone to
get as good a look at me as if it had
been light.
During the tine that I was in this
city 1 suppose 1 wandered from one
end of it to the other. In one place.
where the German staff had it's head,
quarters, a huge German flag hung
from the window, and l think 1 would
have given ten years of my life to
have stolen it. Even if 1 could have
pulled it down, however, it would have
been impossible for me to have con-
cealed it, and to have carried 1t away
with me as a souvenir, therefore would
have been out of the question.
AS I went along the street one night
a lady standing on the corner stopped
me and spoke to me. My first impulse,
of course, was to answer her, explain
ing that 1 could not understand, but l
stopped myself in time, pointed to my
ears and mouth and shook my head,
indicating that / was deaf and dumb,
and she nodded understandingly and
walked on. Incidents of that kind were
not unusual, and I was always in fear
that the time would come when some
inquisitive and suspicious German
would encounter me and not be SO
easily satisfied.
There are many things that l saw in
this city which, for various reasons, it
is impossible for me to relate until
after the wal is over. Some of them.
l think, will create more surprise than
the incidents I am free to reveal now.
1t used to amuse me as 1 went along
the streets of this town, looking in
the shop windows with German SOL
diers at my side looking at the same
things, to think how close 1 was to
them and they had no way of knowing.
/ was quite convinced that if 1 were
discovered my fate would have been
death because I not only had the
forged passport on me, but I had been
so many days behind the German lines
after I had escaped that they couldn't
safely let me live with the informa'
ton I possessed.
One night I walked boldly across a