It was falsely reported that already the English had reached Hal, a town only eleven miles from Brussels, that the night before there had been a fight at Hal, and that close behind the English were the French.
With Gerald Morgan, of the London Daily Telegraph, with whom I had been in other wars, I planned to drive to Hal and from there on foot continue, if possible, into the arms of the French or English.

We both were without credentials, but, once with the Allies, we believed we would not need them.

It was the Germans we doubted.

To satisfy them we had only a passport and a laissez-passer issued by General von Jarotsky, the new German military governor of Brussels, and his chief of staff, Lieutenant Geyer.

Mine stated that I represented the Wheeler Syndicate of American newspapers, the London Daily Chronicle, and Scribner's Magazine, and that I could pass German military lines in Brussels and her environs.