To reach the front there was no other way, and the very openness with which we trailed along beside their army, very much like small boys following a circus procession, seemed to us to show how innocent was our intent.

The column stretched for fifty miles.

Where it was going we did not know, but, we argued, if it kept on going and we kept on with it, eventually we must stumble upon a battle.

The story that at Hal there had been a fight was evidently untrue; and the manner in which the column was advancing showed it was not expecting one.

At noon it halted at Brierges, and Morgan decided Brierges was out of bounds and that the limits of our "environs" had been reached.
"If we go any farther," he argued, "the next officer who reads our papers will order us back to Brussels under arrest, and we will lose our laissez-passer.