We walked for a quarter mile. At our right a barn was burning brightly.
On our left the homes of the peasants of Melle were burning, twenty-six
little yellow brick houses, each with a separate fire. It was not a
conflagration, by one house burning and gradually lighting the next. The
fires were well started and at equal intensity in each house. The walls
between the houses were still intact. The twenty-six fires burned slowly
and thoroughly through the night.
These three thousand German soldiers and their officers were neither
drunk nor riotous. The discipline was excellent. The burning was a
clean-cut, cold-blooded piece of work. It was a piece of punishment.
Belgian soldiers had resisted the German army. If Belgian soldiers
resist, peasant non-combatants must be killed. That inspires terror.
That teaches the lesson: "Do not oppose Germany. It is death to oppose
her--death to your wife and child."
We were surrounded by soldiers and four sentries put over us. Peasants
who walked too close to the camp were brought in and added to our group
of prisoners, till, all told, we numbered thirty. A peasant lying next
to me watched his own house burn to pieces.
Another of the peasants was an old man, of weak mind. He kept babbling
to himself. It would have been obvious to a child that he was foolish.
The German sentry ordered silence. The old fellow muttered on in
unconsciousness of his surroundings.
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