Nor do I know how a child's doll came to be in that harried, uptorn place.

I only know it was there, and being there it seemed to me to sum up the fate of little Belgium in this great war.

If I had been seeking a visible symbol of Belgium's case I do not believe I could have found a more fitting one anywhere.
Going down the hill to the town we met, skirting across our path, a party of natives wearing Red Cross distinguishments.

The lieutenant said these men had undoubtedly been beating the woods and grain fields for the scattered wounded or dead.

He added, without emotion, that from time to time they found one such; in fact, the volunteer searchers had brought in two Frenchmen just before we arrived--one to be cared for at the hospital, the other to be buried.
We had thanked the young lieutenant and had bade him good-by, and were starting off again, hoping to make Maubeuge before night, when suddenly it struck me that the one thing about La Buissiere I should recall most vividly was not the sight of it, all stricken and stunned and forlorn as it was, but the stench of it.
Before this my eyes had been so busy recording impressions that my nose had neglected its duty; now for the first time I sensed the vile reek that arose from all about me.