So I was without credentials. To oblige Mr. Brand
Whitlock, our minister to Belgium, the government there was willing to
give me credentials, but on the day I was to receive them the
government moved to Antwerp. Then the Germans entered Brussels,
and, as no one could foresee that Belgium would heroically continue
fighting, on the chance the Germans would besiege Paris, I planned
to go to that city. To be bombarded you do not need credentials.
For three days a steel-gray column of Germans had been sweeping
through Brussels, and to meet them, from the direction of Vincennes
and Lille, the English and French had crossed the border. 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.
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