Читать книгу A Woman's Experiences in the Great War - Louise Mack - Страница 17

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As I stood in the rain, down there in the ruined blackened piazza of Aerschot, someone drew my attention to the hole in the back-window of the Burgomaster's house.

In cold blood, the Germans had shot the Burgomaster.

And they had shot two of his children.

And as they could not find the Burgomaster's wife, who had fled into the country, they had offered 4,000 francs reward for her.

A hoarse voice whispered that in that room with the broken window, the German Colonel who had ordered the murder of the good, kind, beloved Burgomaster, had met his own fate.

Yes! In the room of the dead Burgomaster's maidservant, the German colonel had fallen dead from a shot fired from without.

By whose hand was it fired, that shot that laid the monster at his victim's feet?

"By the hand of an inferieur!" someone whispers.

And I put together the story, and understand that the girl's village sweetheart avenged her.

They are both dead now—the girl and her village swain—shot down instantly by the howling Germans.

But their memory will never die; for they stand—that martyred boy and girl—for Belgium's fight for its women's honour and the manliness of its men.