General Thyss's cellars are famous, and with our dinner of soup and bacon and eggs, we had some of the finest Burgundy I have ever tasted. Early to bed so that we could be up and off at daybreak.
Friday morning we were away early, and made for Herve, where I had never been before. It is a ruin with a few natives and a lot of Landsturm left. We talked to some peasants and to an old priest who gave us something to think about in their stories of happenings there during and after the occupation of their homes. From there to Liège, by way of a lot of little villages whose names I don't remember, but whose condition was pretty bad, past the fort of Fléron and the defensive works that are being put up there.
Wasted some time trying to get gasoline for the other motors, and then the long stretch to Namur, down the valley of the Meuse, and stopped long enough for a look at Andennes, my second visit to the place.
In Andenne and Seilles (a little village across the Meuse) the Germans did a thorough job. They killed about three hundred people and burned about the same number of houses. Most of the houses had been looted systematically. According to the stories of those inhabitants who remain, there was a reign of terror for about a week, during which the Germans rendered themselves guilty of every sort of atrocity and barbarity. They are all most positive that there was no firing upon the German troops by the civil population. It seems to be generally believed that the massacre was due to resistance of retiring Belgian troops and the destruction of bridges and tunnels to cover their retreat. Whatever the provocation, the behaviour of the Germans was that of savages. We were shown photographs showing the corpses of some of those killed. It was to be inferred that they had been wantonly mutilated.
Had lunch at an hotel across the street from the station. After a hasty lunch we made off to Dinant, still following the Meuse. The thin line of houses down the course of the river were thinner than they were a few months ago, and there were signs of suffering and distress everywhere. I had never been to Dinant before, but had seen pictures of it and thought I had an idea of what we were going to see. But the pictures did not give a hint of the horror of the place. The little town, which must have been a gem, nestled at the foot of a huge gray cliff, crowned with the obsolete fort, which was not used or attacked. The town is _gone_. Part of the church is standing, and the walls of a number of buildings, but for the most part, there is nothing but a mess of scattered bricks to show where the houses had stood. And why it was done, we were not able to learn, for everybody there says that there was no fighting in the town itself. We heard stories, too, and such stories that they can hardly be put on paper. Our three guests were more and more impressed as we went on. The bridge was blown up and had fallen into the river, and as we had little time to make the rest of our day's journey, we did not wait to cross by the emergency bridge farther up the river. While we were standing talking to a schoolmaster and his father by the destroyed bridge, seven big huskies with rifles and fixed bayonets came through, leading an old man and a woman who had been found with a camera in their possession. At first there was no objection raised to the taking of photographs, but now our friends are getting a little touchy about it, and lock up anybody silly enough to get caught with kodaks or cameras.