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CHAPTER V
A DAY AT DUN
SEPTEMBER 23rd. I had intended leaving the 5th
Army that day, but at our meeting on the previous
evening Crown Prince WilHam had been kind enough
to ask if I could not stay one day longer. This hospitality
was the more acceptable, as I wanted to inspect the pretty,
but unfortunately badly damaged little town of Dun on the
Meuse.
When, therefore, the Crown Prince, called away by duty,
motored that morning to Romagne, I accompanied Chamber-
Iain von Behr in one of the Staff cars, and after an early
and rapid run to Dun was ceremoniously handed over to the
Commandant of the base there, Lieutenant-Colonel Betz.
The latter was only just up when we entered his quarters at
the Villa Saint Claude, belonging to a M. Thiébaut of Nancy.
But he appeared, big, strong and pleasant, and assured me
that I should be well looked after at Dun. To begin with I
kept him company while he breakfasted, and he gave me
an account of how Dun was taken by the Germans and how
by far the greater part of the serious damage to the houses
in the main street was done by French shells. But this belongs
to the general history of the war, and I have pledged myself
to speak of nothing but what I have seen with my own eyes.
A civilian who wanders about a recently conquered town,
in which the invader’s troops are quartered, looking at every-
thing and sketching this, that and the other, is rightly regarded
by sentries and patrols as a highly suspicious character. He
is rigorously watched and tracked ; he will notice that some-
one is following him like a shadow ; finally he will be arrested
and directed with cold military precision to accompany his
captor to the proper examining authority. Little adventures
of this kind might be quite amusing and exciting to me,
knowing that they would always have a happy ending ; but
I had no time for them, and was grateful when Lieutenant-
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