The woman said a party of private soldiers, straying back from the main column, had despoiled her, taking what they pleased of her goods and in pure vandalism destroying what they could not use.
Her shop was ruined, she said.

With a gesture of both arms, as though casting something from her, she expressed how utter and complete was her ruin.

Also she was hungry--she and her children--for the Germans had eaten all the food in the house and all the food in the houses of her neighbors.

We could not feed her, for we had no stock of provisions with us; but we gave her a five-franc piece and left her calling down the blessings of the saints on us in French-Flemish.
The sister village of Merbes-le-Chateau, another kilometer farther on, revealed to us all its doors and many of its windows caved in by blows of gun butts and, at the nearer end of the principal street, five houses in smoking ruins.

A group of men and women were pawing about in the wreckage, seeking salvage.