Or else there would be a hunchback-- crooked spines being almost as common in parts of Belgium as goiters are in parts of Switzerland.

But Battice had become an empty tomb, and was as lonely and as silent as a tomb.

Its people--those who survived--had fled from it as from an abomination.
Beyond Battice stood another village, called Herve; and Herve was Battice all over again, with variations.

At this place, during the first few hours of actual hostilities between the little country and the big one, the Belgians had tried to stem the inpouring German flood, as was proved by wrecks of barricades in the high street.

One barricade had been built of wagon bodies and the big iron hods of road-scrapers; the wrecks of these were still piled at the road's edge.