THE FORBIDDEN ZONE
_Other works by Mary Borden_
THE ROMANTIC WOMAN
JANE--OUR STRANGER
THREE PILGRIMS AND A TINKER
FOUR O’CLOCK
JERICHO SANDS
FLAMINGO
JEHOVAH’S DAY
[Illustration: SOLITUDE]
SOLITUDE
_The zone at Thiepval, near the Somme, in 1916_
_From the Drypoint by_
PERCY SMITH
THE FORBIDDEN ZONE
BY
MARY BORDEN
[Illustration]
_To the Poilus
who came that way in
1914-1918_
[Illustration]
WILLIAM HEINEMANN, LTD.,
_London_
_Published 1929_
CONTENTS
_Part One_
THE NORTH
_Page_
1 BELGIUM 1
2 BOMBARDMENT 5
3 THE CAPTIVE BALLOON 11
4 THE SQUARE 13
5 SENTINELS 17
6 THE REGIMENT 21
7 THE BEACH 42
8 MOONLIGHT 51
9 ENFANT DE MALHEUR. A story 66
10 ROSA. A story 93
_Part Two_
THE SOMME
_Hospital Sketches_
1 THE CITY IN THE DESERT 109
2 CONSPIRACY 117
3 PARAPHERNALIA 123
4 IN THE OPERATING ROOM 127
5 BLIND. A story 136
6 THE PRIEST AND THE RABBI. A story 160
7 THE TWO GUNNERS. A story 167
POEMS
1 THE HILL 175
2 THE SONG OF THE MUD 179
3 WHERE IS JEHOVAH? 183
4 THE VIRGIN OF ALBERT 189
5 UNIDENTIFIED 193
THE PREFACE
_I have not invented anything in this book. The sketches and poems were
written between 1914 and 1918, during four years of hospital work with
the French Army. The five stories I have written recently from memory;
they recount true episodes that I cannot forget._
_I have called the collection of fragments “The Forbidden Zone” because
the strip of land immediately behind the zone of fire where I was
stationed went by that name in the French Army. We were moved up and
down inside it; our hospital unit was shifted from Flanders to the
Somme, then to Champagne, and then back again to Belgium, but we never
left “La Zone Interdite.”_
_To those who find these impressions confused, I would say that they
are fragments of a great confusion. Any attempt to reduce them to order
would require artifice on my part and would falsify them. To those on
the other hand who find them unbearably plain, I would say that I have
blurred the bare horror of facts and softened the reality in spite of
myself, not because I wished to do so, but because I was incapable of a
nearer approach to the truth._
_I have dared to dedicate these pages to the Poilus who passed through
our hands during the war, because I believe they would recognise the
dimmed reality reflected in these pictures. But the book is not meant
for them. They know, not only everything that is contained in it, but
all the rest that can never be written._
_The Author._
PART ONE
THE NORTH
BELGIUM
MUD: and a thin rain coming down to make more mud.
Mud: with scraps of iron lying in it and the straggling fragment of a
nation, lolling, hanging about in the mud on the edge of disaster.
It is quiet here. The rain and the mud muffle the voice of the war
that is growling beyond the horizon. But if you listen you can hear
cataracts of iron pouring down channels in the sodden land, and you
feel the earth trembling.
Back there is France, just behind the windmill. To the north, the
coast; a coast without a port, futile. On our right? That’s the road
to Ypres. The less said about that road the better: no one goes down
it for choice--it’s British now. Ahead of us, then? No, you can’t get
out that way. No, there’s no frontier, just a bleeding edge, trenches.
That’s where the enemy took his last bite, fastened his iron teeth,
and stuffed to bursting, stopped devouring Belgium, left this strip,
these useless fields, these crumpled dwellings.
Cities? None. Towns? No whole ones. Yes, there are half a dozen
villages. But there is plenty of mud, and a thin silent rain falling
to make more mud--mud with things lying in it, wheels, broken motors,
parts of houses, graves.
This is what is left of Belgium. Come, I’ll show you. Here are trees
drooping along a canal, ploughed fields, roads leading into sand
dunes, roofless houses. There’s a farm, an old woman with a crooked
back feeding chickens, a convoy of motor lorries round a barn; they
squat like elephants. And here is a village crouching in the mud: the
cobblestone street is slippery and smeared with refuse, and there is a
yellow cat sitting in a window. This is the headquarters of the Belgian
Army. You see those men, lolling in the doorways--uncouth, dishevelled,
dirty? They are soldiers. You can read on their heavy jowls, in their
stupified, patient, hopeless eyes, how boring it is to be a hero.
The king is here. His office is in the schoolroom down the street, a
little way past the church, just beyond the dung heap. If we wait we
may see him. Let’s stand with these people in the rain and wait.
A band is going to play to the army. Yes, I told you, this is the
army--these stolid men standing aimlessly in the drizzle, and these
who come stumbling along the slippery ditches, and those leaning in
degraded doorways. They fought their way out of Liege and Namur,
followed the king here; they are what is left of plucky little
Belgium’s heroic army.
And the song of the nation that comes from the horns in the front of
the wine shop, the song that sounds like the bleating of sheep, can it
help them? Can it deceive them? Can it whisk from their faces the stale
despair, the unutterable boredom, and brighten their disappointed eyes?
They are so few, and they have nothing to do but stand in the rain
waiting. When the band stops they will disappear into the estaminet to
warm their stomachs with wine and cuddle the round-cheeked girls. What
else can they do? The French are on one side of them, the British on
the other, and the enemy in front. They cannot go back; to go back is
to retreat, and they have been retreating ever since they can remember.
They can retreat no farther. This village is where they stop. At one
end of it is a pigsty, at the other end is a grave-yard, and all about
are flats of mud. Can the noise, the rhythmical beating of the drum,
the piping, the hoarse shrieking, help these men, make them believe,
make them glad to be heroes? They have nowhere to go now and nothing
to do. There is nothing but mud all about, and a soft fine rain coming
down to make more mud--mud with a broken fragment of a nation lolling
in it, hanging about waiting in it behind the shelter of a disaster
that has been accomplished.
Come away, for God’s sake--come away. Let’s go back to Dunkerque. The
king? Didn’t you see him? He came out of the schoolhouse some time ago
and drove away toward the sand-dunes--a big fair man in uniform. You
didn’t notice? Never mind. Come away.
BOMBARDMENT
The wide sweet heaven was filling with light: the perfect dome of night
was changing into day. A million silver worlds dissolved from above the
earth: the sun was about to rise in stillness: no wind stirred.
A speck appeared in the great immensity. It was an aeroplane travelling
high through the mysterious twilight. The sound of the whirring of its
engine was lost in the depthless air: like a ghost it flew through the
impalpable firmament: it was the only thing that moved in heaven and
earth.
The unconscious map lay spread out beneath it: the wide plain, the long
white beach and the sea, lay there exposed to its speeding eye.
On the face of the plain were villages and cities; the dwellings of
men who had put their trust in the heavens and had dared to people the
earth.
The aeroplane turned in the sky and began circling over the town.
The town far below was asleep. It lay pillowed on the secure shore;
violet shadows leaned against its pale buildings; there was no movement
in its streets; no smoke from its chimneys. The ships lay still in the
deep close harbour; their masts rose out of the green water like reeds
thickly growing with the great funnels and turrets of warships like
strange plants among them. The sea beyond the strong breakwater was
smooth as a silver plate; there was no sound anywhere.
The aeroplane descended in slow spirals upon the town, tracing an
invisible path through the pearly air. It was as if a messenger from
heaven were descending upon the people of the town who dreamed.
Suddenly a scream burst from the throat of the church tower. For an
instant the sky seemed to shiver with the stab of that wail of terror
rising from the great stone throat. Surely the town would waken in a
panic--and yet, no, nothing stirred. There was no sound or movement in
any street and the sky gave back no sign.
The aeroplane continued to descend until it looked from the church
tower like a mosquito; then there dropped something from it that
flashed through the air, a spark of fire.
Silence had followed the scream.
The aeroplane, superbly poised now in the spotless sky, watched the
buildings below it as if waiting for some strange thing to happen; and
presently, as if exorcised by the magic eye of that insect, a cluster
of houses collapsed, while a roar burst from the wounded earth.
The bombardment had commenced. The big gun hiding in the sand-dunes in
Belgium had obeyed the signal.
Still, the neat surface of the wide city showed no change, save in
that one spot where the houses had fallen. How slow to wake the town
was! The daylight brightened, painting the surfaces of the buildings
with pale rose and primrose. The clean empty streets cut the city into
firm blocks of buildings; the pattern of the town spread out on the
earth, with its neat edges marked by walls and canals, gleamed like a
varnished map.
Then the siren in the church tower screamed again; its wail was
followed by a second roar and a ragged hole yawned in the open square
in the middle of the town.
The aeroplane circled smoothly, watching.
And at last signs of terror and bewilderment appeared in the human
ant hill beneath it. Distracted midgets swarmed from the houses: this
way and that they scurried, diving into openings in the ground: swift
armoured beetles rushed through the streets; white jets of steam rose
from the locomotives in the station yard: the harbour throbbed.
Again there was a great noise, and a cloud of debris was flung into the
air as from a volcano, and flames leapt after it. A part of the wharf
with a shed on it reeled drunkenly into the sea with a splash.
The white beach was crawling now with vermin; the human hive swarmed
out on to the sands. Their eyes were fixed on the evil flying thing in
the sky and at each explosion they fell on their faces like frantic
worshippers.
The aeroplane cavorted, whirling after its tail in an ecstacy of
self-gratification. Down among the sand-dunes it could see the tiny
black figures of men at the anti-aircraft guns. These were the
defenders of the town; they had orders to shoot to death a mosquito
floating in boundless heaven. The little clouds that burst in the
sunlight were like materialised kisses.
The face of the city had begun to show a curious change. Scars appeared
on it like the marks of smallpox and as these thickened on its trim
surface, it seemed as if it were being attacked by an invisible
and gigantic beast, who was tearing and gnawing it with claws and
teeth. Gashes appeared in its streets, long wounds with ragged edges.
Helpless, spread out to the heavens, it grimaced with mutilated
features.
Nevertheless the sun rose, touching the aeroplane with gold, and the
aeroplane laughed. It laughed at the convulsed face of the town, at
the beach crawling with vermin, at the ant people swarming through the
gates of the city along the white roads; it laughed at the warships
moving out of the harbour one by one in stately procession, the mouths
of their guns gaping helplessly in their armoured sides. With a last
flick of its glittering wings, it darted downward defiant, dodging
the kisses of shrapnel, luring them, teasing them, playing with them:
then, its message delivered, its sport over, it flew up and away
in the sunshine and disappeared. A speck in the infinite sky, then
nothing--and the town was left in convulsions.
THE CAPTIVE BALLOON
There is a captive balloon in the sky, just over there. It looks like
an oyster floating in the sky.
They say that a man lives in the balloon. They say that from the
balloon you can see the enemy’s trenches and the country behind that
is held by the enemy, but from here we can see nothing, only trees and
farmhouses and carts going along the road, and the captive balloon.
Aeroplanes sail over our heads sometimes. They gleam in the sun, they
move past with a great whirring, they fly fearlessly toward the enemy’s
country. They whirl about and disappear and come again, swooping down
over us with arrogant wings. They are beautiful, proud and adventurous.
But the captive balloon is tied forever by a string to a cabbage field.
It has been just over there ever since we have been here and that is
a long time now. It never moves. It never comes down or goes up. It
floats there while the biplanes and the monoplanes circle round it.
What does it do? It is an oyster in the sky, keeping an eye on the
Germans.
THE SQUARE
Below my window in the big bright square a struggle is going on between
the machines of war and the people of the town. There are the motor
cars of the army, the limousines, and the touring cars and the motor
lorries and the ambulances; and there are the little bareheaded women
of the town with baskets on their arms who try to push the monsters out
of their way.
The motors come in and go out of the four corners of the square, and
they stand panting and snorting in the middle of it. The limousines
are full of smart men in uniforms with silver hair and gold braid on
their round red hats. The touring cars, too, are full of uniforms, but
on the faces of the young men who drive them is a look of exhaustion
and excitement. The motors make a great noise and a great smell and a
great dust. They come into the square, hooting and shrieking; they
draw up in the square with grinding brakes. The men in them get out
with a flourish of capes: they stamp on the pavement with heavy boots;
they salute one another stiffly like wooden toys, then disappear into
the buildings where they hold murderous conferences and make elaborate
plans of massacre.
The motor cars have all gone wrong. They are queer. They are not
doing what they were designed to do when they were turned out of
the factories. The limousines were made to carry ladies to places
of amusement: they are carrying generals to places of killing.
The limousines and the touring cars and the motor lorries are all
debauched; they have a depraved look; their springs sag, their wheels
waver; their bodies lean to one side. The elegant limousines that carry
the generals are crusted with old mud; the leather cushions of the
touring cars are in tatters; the great motor lorries crouch under vast
burdens. They crouch in the square ashamed, deformed, very weary; their
unspeakable burdens bulge under canvas coverings. Only the snobbish
ambulances with the red crosses on their sides have self-assurance.
They have the self-assurance of amateurs.
The business of killing and the business of living go on together in
the square beneath the many windows, jostling each other.
The little women of the town are busy; they are dressed in black;
they have children with them. Some lead children by the hand, others
are big with children yet unborn. But all the women are busy. They
ignore the motors; they do not see the fine scowling generals, nor the
strained excited faces in the fast touring cars, nor the provisions of
war under their lumpy coverings. They do not even wonder what is in
the ambulances. They are too busy. They scurry across to the shops,
instinctively dodging, and come out again with bundles; they talk to
each other a little without smiling; they stare in front of them; they
are staring at life; they are thinking about the business of living.
On Saturdays they put up their booths on the cobble stones and hold
their market. The motors have to go round another way on market days.
There is no room in the square for the generals, nor for the dying
men in the ambulances. The women are there. They buy and sell their
saucepans and their linen and their spools of thread and their fowls
and their flowers; they bargain and they chatter; they provide for
their houses and their children; they give oranges to their children,
and put away their coppers in their deep pockets.
As for the men on the stretchers inside the smart ambulances with the
bright red crosses, they do not know about the women in the square.
They cannot hear their chattering, nor see the children sucking
oranges; they can see nothing and hear nothing of the life that is
going on in the square; they are lying on their backs in the dark
canvas bellies of the ambulances, staring at death. They do not know
that on Saturday mornings their road does not lie through the big
bright square because the little women of the town are busy with their
market.
SENTINELS
All these little men coming out of their boxes along the road--.
The boxes are oblong. They stand on end by the ragged ditches. The men
pop out of the boxes into the middle of the road. They are blurred and
shapeless. They wave dirty flags in weary warning. A motor car slows up
and stops before the box. The languid menace of these figures stops it;
their joyless power holds it with its engines panting.
The coats of the little men who come out of the boxes are too big for
them; their rifles with the bayonets are too heavy. The light of the
sky in the daytime is too strong, and the darkness of the night is too
dark, and the many motors that pass the barriers are too many. The
vague vast meaning of their minute task is too much for them.
It is stupid to live in an oblong box in a ditch, and to pop out at
the sound of a motor and wave a flag and look at a piece of blue paper
or a piece of pink paper with writing on it that is hard to read. There
is a name written on the paper, but how is one to know whether the name
written on the paper is the name that was given to the man in the motor
by his parents when he was a baby in a cradle? How is one to know? It
is one’s business to look at the paper and at the man’s face. What good
does that do? What does it matter? It is one’s duty to look at the
paper. It is one’s duty to look at the man. It is one’s duty to find
out where he has come from and where he is going. La Panne, Dunkerque,
Bourburg, Calais, Boulogne; Boulogne, Calais, Bourburg, Dunkerque, La
Panne, it is always the same. It is always written there on the paper,
with the stamp and the signature of some well-educated officer who sits
in some warm room before piles of papers. These papers wander out from
his room along the road.
It is always the same on the road. It is always the same. All these
motor cars full of men keep coming along the road--the long road that
leads to the war. Sometimes it is hot and there is sunlight and dust
on the road, and the smell of petrol is strong; sometimes it is cold
and the rain beats down from the sky; sometimes it is night and there
is a lantern to wave instead of a flag, and there is the fear of
falling asleep. But the road is always the same and the box by the road
is always the same, and deep down there is the same truth always.
All these motors and all these scornful men that stop to show impatient
papers will disappear up the road for ever. Even those who come down
the road will go up again and will be destroyed and will never come
back. So it is good to be in the box. As long as one is in the box
one will not be destroyed. These fools who are angry because they are
stopped on the road that leads to the war, they will be destroyed. The
generals who do not look and the colonels who glance sideways, and the
lieutenants who make bad jokes--the English and the French and the
Belgians--they will all be destroyed.
They wear fine uniforms. Their faces are clean. They have been eating
good food. They receive back their papers disdainfully. They wear
gloves. They will be destroyed with their gold braid and their medals
and the good food inside them.
Their motors dash off flinging mud into the face from their hind
wheels. They disappear. The road is empty.
THE REGIMENT
There was no sign of horror in the heavens or upon the earth. The
summer world was deep, immense, beautiful. High white clouds were
moving slowly towards Belgium, moving without movement through a sky
ineffably blue, superb castles of white vapour, floating towards a land
called No Man’s Land, and their shadows were flung like banners far
below over the green meadows and fields of yellow corn.
An aeroplane was visiting the romantic city of the sky. A fearless,
capricious, gay glittering creature of pleasure, it flew through the
glistening portals and disappeared, bent on mysterious adventure.
The smiling country was enjoying itself. The caress of the wind sent
shudders of pleasure through the corn and a fluttering delight through
the trees. Along the road banks scarlet poppies were winking their
little black eyes. Like grizzled dwarfs squatting on pedestals in the
fields, the windmills waved their arms in grotesque gaiety.
War had that day the aspect of a country fair. The armies were gipsy
caravans vagabonding over the country. Swarms of little men were
housekeeping in the open. Their camp fires, their pots and pans, and
their garments hung out to dry on bushes, twinkled and fluttered
through the furbelowed country side. Here and there near a stream, a
cluster of tents, gaudily painted, suggested a circus.
The snug villages tucked between the fields of high golden corn and
scattered clumps of woodland hummed like beehives, sheltering an army
in their warm farmyards and barns and cottages, and the army in reserve
waited comfortably, sharing the lovely day with the cattle, the great
farm horses, the pigs and chickens.
Ten miles from the Belgian frontier a lowbrowed, moody town dozed on
the banks of a canal. Folded close between its great gates, it was deep
as a dark well in the midst of the bright flighty country. The dull
ochre walls of the houses soaked up the sunlight. Their shutters were
closed. The barges in the canal were motionless, their great bosoms
sunk deep in the cool water. From the quiet streets and close-lidded
houses the spirit of the place was being distilled in the sunlight.
It was as if the sun were drawing the melancholy soul out of the
weary, proud old body of the town. Reluctantly it gave up its secret.
The memories of its troubled history and of how it had defended a
passionate egoism on the threshold of an alien nation, spread upon the
sunny air like a dark and bitter perfume.
A regiment was marching along the high road towards the town. In the
distance, looking towards Belgium, you could see it coming down the
white road. It was a shadow moving across the bright surface of the
country against the wind and against the shadows of the clouds. It
looked like the shadow of a snake.
There was, however, no snake visible in the lovely sky, and on a nearer
view the shadow became a column of hunchbacks, a herd of deformed
creatures driven on together, each one like another one.
It was a French territorial regiment. It had come out of the trenches
that morning, and from the trenches it was marching toward the town.
It was a moving mass of men covered over with the cloth of fatigue.
Over them was their suffocating weariness, and under them was the dust
of the road. They moved along, bending forward as if the space between
the weight that lay on them and the dusty road under them was not wide
enough to hold them upright. They moved laboriously through the dust,
as if they were dragging chains. But there was no sound from them save
the dull sound of their feet tramping the road.
The regiment was a regiment of old men. Their faces were old and their
clothes were old and their bodies were old, and the spirit in them was
old. There was no youth in any one of them.
They marched steadily along the road. Their gait was the steady jolting
gait of weary animals. They did not look quite like men. One could
not be certain what kind of men they were. One could only be certain
that they were not young. They had not quite the colour nor the
shape of men. The war had spread over them its own colour. They were
dark against the bright mirage of summer. They were of a deep, dull
courageous hue. Their faces and their hands and their coats were all
stained with the same stain, no longer blue, no longer brown. Fatigue
and suffering and dirt had soaked through them and had made them this
colour.
And they were all deformed, and certainly their deformity was the
deformity of the war. They were not misshapen in different ways. They
were all misshapen in the same way. Each one was deformed like the
next one. Each one had been twisted and bent in the same way. Each one
carried the same burden that bowed his back, the same knapsack, the
same roll of blanket, the same flask, the same dangling box, the same
gun. Each one dragged swollen feet in the same thick-crusted boots. The
same machine had twisted and bent them all. They did not look quite
like men, and yet they were men.
Nor did they behave like men. They did not look about them as they
marched along the road. They did not talk as they marched close
together. They did not stop marching, never for a moment did they stop
marching. They did not shift their burdens to ease them. They did not
notice the milestones as they passed. They paid no attention to the
signposts at the cross roads. They did not wipe the sweat off their
faces. They did not behave like men walking through pleasant country,
and yet they assuredly were men.
I saw in their eyes that they were men. They marched with their eyes
fixed on the rough bent backs of those in front, on the rough backs
of their companions who were too old to be comrades. And in their
deep fixed eyes, sunk under grizzled eyebrows, there was a strange
expression, the expression of profound knowledge. They were old men and
they knew. There were many things they did not know; they did not know
where they were going; they did not know why they were going there;
they did not know how far they had to go, or how long they would rest
there; but two things they did know; they knew that they were not going
home, and they knew that they were condemned to death. They knew this;
they had always known. They understood and they did not complain.
France was at war. They were old men. Their sons had been killed. They
were taking the place of their sons.
There was no elasticity in them, nor any enthusiasm, nor any passion;
but they were patient. Being old men, there was nothing they could
not accept; there was nothing they could not endure. They had endured
fatigue and cold and hunger and wet. They had endured so long that they
had ceased to think about these things. Their weariness was a thing of
such long standing that they thought of it no more. Their uncleanness
had become a habit to them. Suffering was a part of their rations. They
were acclimatised to misery. Death was a part of the equipment they
carried always with them. The war had no interest for them nor any
terror. They accepted the war. It was a thing to be endured. They were
enduring it.
There was only one thing they wanted, and this thing they wanted
without hope. They wanted to go home, and they knew they were not going
home.
Out of the deep comfort of the warm dear holes they had dug for
themselves in the land they loved, these old men had been called to
war, the bleak desert of death. Each one had been torn up out of the
deep place he had made. Like old trees, strong rooted, they had grown
into the soil of France, and they had been torn up and carted away to
die, and in the place each one had left there was a gaping hole.
They remembered their homes as they marched along the road. They did
not look about them as they walked through the bright country that was
enjoying itself, because this country was not their home and they were
too tired to look up.
They were coming away from the trenches and they were tired. They were
relieved of the strain of imminent death, but the relief made them only
more tired. And what was the good of coming away from the trenches if
they were not going home? Long ago they had gone into the trenches.
They had crawled laboriously into them, their old bodies creaking,
their gouty souls wincing, and they had learned how to live in those
ditches. Carefully with great caution they had learned how to endure
them. They had smoked innumerable pipes in them and had chewed loaves
of bread; they had slept and waked and received letters from home.
Then, with the same creaking of their joints they had come out of the
trenches. Some of them had not come out, but those that were left had
come out.
Now they were going along the road.
They did not know where they were going; they only knew that they were
not going home. It was all the same to them as long as they could not
go home.
The aeroplane, glittering in the sun, was still circling through the
citadel of the sky. High it flew. It flew high! It flew higher again,
and still higher.
The regiment was chained to the earth. The men were chained to the
ground. They were heavy; they were fastened down. The mass of them
jolted along, a dark weight scraping the road. Their flag alone was
lifted. It moved fluttering above their heads, tattered and soiled. It
was there for an emblem of hope. They ignored it. They did not see it.
Long ago they had ceased to regard it.
So they marched toward the town.
In the centre of the big sleepy square of the town was a group of
fine little men in costume. They were waiting for the regiment that
was marching along the road, and they were waiting for the General
who commanded the army, the General-in-Chief, their own General.
These fine little men were officers. One could not be certain that
they had anything to do with the war, but one could be certain that
they were officers. Their trim figures, polished and clean and neatly
put together and nicely covered in scarlet and blue cloth and brown
leather, stood upright in the centre of the square. The wide expanse
of cobblestones on which they stood glistened like a sheet of opaque
glass. From the four sides of the square the wise houses watched under
ruminating brows. It was difficult to tell what the houses thought of
the officers in the square. It was difficult to tell what the officers
were doing there in the middle of the square. Certainly they were
waiting, but they seemed to be busily, nervously waiting. They could
not keep still. They seemed conscious of the stare of the houses. They
drew themselves up very straight. Their arms made quick gestures; their
gloved hands twirled their moustaches; their neat heels tapped the
pavement smartly. They bowed to one another elaborately.
There was variety among these officers. No one was like another one.
Not one had gestures like another one. Not one had clothes like another
one. Certainly they were individuals. One was a slim, graceful one;
one was a flabby one; one was an elegant one; one a tall, very stiff
one; one was a pot-bellied one. Each remained the same one he had been
before the war. They were varnished over with a military varnish, but
beneath the varnish appeared distinctly the small individuality of each
one. It was curious to see such fine shiny men in the centre of the old
haggard town.
The hard knobbled palm of the square held them up to the view of the
sky.
Through the east gate of the town the regiment came into the town
dragging its weight and its darkness, and it poured its darkness
into the square. It poured through the gap of the street into the
square, and it came to a stand. It was a dark mass of tenacity, inert,
incurious, obstinate, one man beside another man, each one like the
next one, close packed together between the pale dreaming houses.
The regiment brought truth into the square. It was a fact, a darkness,
a weight filling one side of the square.
And with the regiment war appeared in the square.
The town shuddered under the tramping feet of the regiment.
The men of the regiment stood close packed together. The mass of their
round metal helmets gleamed like a beach of smooth pebbles before the
windows of the houses, and their bayonets shot up like a forest of
knives flashing in the sunlight.
The town shuddered. But there was sympathy between the regiment and the
town.
The town said to the regiment:
“You old ones, you are strangers; but we know you. You come from the
war. You are welcome.”
The regiment said to the town:
“You are kind, but you’d do well to keep your welcome for those who
can use it. We are old. We want nothing since we cannot go home.”
“Rest here awhile, old ones,” repeated the town.
“No, we cannot stay. We do not belong here. You are old, too, like us;
but we are too tired to make friends with you, though we thank you.”
The group of officers said to the regiment:
“Look spry now. You’re to be inspected by the General, and we are to
receive decorations.”
The regiment didn’t answer. It had nothing to say to the staff
officers. It did not recognise them. Its own officers--yes; but
these it did not know, and the staff officers were embarrassed by
the obstinacy and the stupidity and weariness of the regiment. They
fidgeted on the edge of its darkness.
While the regiment and the officers waited in the square for the
General, the aeroplane flew down from the cloud castles in the sky and
circled over the town crying gaily:
“Look at me. Look at me, you heavy old ones, I can fly.”
The officers looked up at the aeroplane. The regiment did not look up.
The officers said to themselves:
“That silly aeroplane is amusing itself, but we are going to receive
decorations.”
The regiment remained silent. It took no notice.
A bugle sounded, heralding the approach of the General, but instead
of the General a woman came into the square. She came in a motor with
glass windows. Her shining car stopped in front of the regiment. She
opened the door of the motor and put out her white foot and stepped
down, and her delicate body dressed in the white uniform of a hospital
was exposed to the view of the officers and the regiment. Her head was
bound close with a white kerchief. A red cross burned on her forehead.
She was a beautiful animal dressed as a nun and branded with a red
cross. Her shadowy eyes said to the regiment:
“I came to the war to nurse you and comfort you.”
The regiment said nothing. It did not know what to say. It was merely
puzzled.
Her red mouth said to the officers:
“I am here for you.”
And the officers said:
“We know why you are here.”
The eyes of the officers followed the white shining woman as she moved
through the sunlight, and they rested on her as she stood in a shadowed
doorway.
The presence of the woman was a teasing current of delight touching the
officers.
To the regiment the woman was a puzzle, but the old ones were too tired
to bother about puzzles.
To the town she was a strange fantastic thing, like a white peacock.
The town said to itself: “This curious creature has gone astray. It has
the appearance of being expensive. It must have escaped from its owner
who, no doubt, prizes it highly; but that is none of our business.”
The clock in the church tower marked three o’clock.
Suddenly a cry burst from the regiment, and a shout burst from the
trumpets and horns and drums of the regiment. It rang through the
square shivering against the houses. The little people of the town
came to their doorways. The rosy faces of the comfortable women and the
round children spread round the square like a smile, and the hoarse
passionate voice of the old rusty regiment rose bravely in welcome.
The General came.
He appeared at the far end of the square, a small solid figure standing
alone. He existed apart, isolated. He stood at a distance, a solitary
man, concentrating the attention of the town.
He came across the square alone, growing larger and larger as he came.
He covered the ground with long strides. His gloved hand was on the
hilt of his sword. When he reached the centre of the square, he wheeled
and faced the regiment, a stone giant, solid as granite, commanding the
attention of every man in the square. He ignored the officers and faced
the regiment. And the town watching saw a curious thing. The bodies of
the hunchbacks straightened under the eyes of the General. It was as
if the iron arm of the stone man raised to salute them had lifted the
weariness from the deformed shoulders of those old ones.
It was evident to the town that the General understood the regiment. It
was evident that he knew what they knew. And with this dark knowledge
he faced them. The trumpets and drums were hushed. A strange silence
filled the square, and in silence the General summoned the regiment to
meet his eyes. He took full in the face its dumb message. The weight
he had lifted from it fell on him. The darkness drowning it flowed
into him. He accepted it. He did not dodge it or bend under the weight
of it. He stood rigid before the eyes of the regiment challenging its
knowledge. The weary eyes of the old territorials were fixed on his
white head and deep stony face. They searched him, and they saw that
he knew what they knew, that there was nothing about the war that he
didn’t know, and they were satisfied.
The General said to the regiment:
“You are mine. Your sons have been killed. France had need of you and
you came. You must die for France as your sons died. You left your
homes to come to the war. You will never go home again. You will go
back to the trenches. It is I who will send you back there. Again and
again you will go back to those ditches, by my orders, until you are
killed as your sons were killed. You are mine for the war. I carry the
weight of your obedience and your patience. You will be patient until
death. I know you.”
The regiment answered the General:
“It is for our homes and for our sons. We are here because our sons
are gone to protect the homes we cannot go back to. You are the one we
obey.”
There was truth between the regiment and the General.
And the old town looking on, said:
“Clearly this is a great man. A hundred years ago there came here such
a one as this, and he was a great man. We, too, are acquainted with war
and with armies. We have seen thousands of little men, and we have seen
some big men. We know that this is a great man.”
From the regiment the General turned to the officers and the town
perceived that the relation of the General to his officers was a
complex thing. It was as complicated as a formal dance or pantomime on
a stage. The officers knew their steps. They had apparently rehearsed
the performance. The General treated the officers with elaborate
ceremony. He was there to decorate them. The decorating of the officers
was a ceremony, and he performed the ceremony with the skill of an
actor. It was a pretty play in which the General played the principal
rôle. He played it with solemnity. He saluted each one in turn, the
long one, and the pale one and the pot-bellied one. He drew his sword
from its scabbard; it flashed in the sun as he laid it upon their
shoulders. On the left shoulder and upon the right shoulder of the
Colonel he laid his sword. He pinned a medal on the Colonel’s elegant
chest and then he kissed him on the left cheek and on the right cheek.
He did the same with each officer in turn. He called each one by name
and addressed him in a loud voice of commendation. He laid on each one
his sword and he kissed each one on both cheeks, and on the chest of
each one he left a bit of ribbon and a bright medal.
The regiment in the background was the chorus for this pretty play.
After each kiss and each decoration the trumpets and drums of the
regiment cried aloud in congratulation.
Kisses and bits of ribbon and a graceful flashing sword, these little
things passed between the General and his officers. No truth passed
between them--nothing but a play.
And the play was ended.
And the General went away as he had come, taking with him the pride and
the courage that he had brought into the square.
The face of the town grew dull as it watched him go. The women and
the children disappeared into the dim houses. The white strange woman
looked after him with vague, troubled eyes, not noticing the officers
who advanced towards her, elaborately bowing.
The regiment lowered its bayonets at his going and bowed its shoulders.
Its darkness grew more dark, and its weariness more heavy. When the
General had gone it became again a shapeless mass of dark, weary
hunchbacks.
The clock in the church tower marked five o’clock when the regiment
left the square. It marched out of the town and along the road as it
had come.
A regiment of old men.
They did not know where they were going. It did not matter to them
where they were going. They did not look about them as they marched.
They did not look before them, nor behind them. They did not look up at
the cloudless sky, nor did they wonder where the clouds had gone. They
did not remember the beautiful clouds of the morning that had sailed
serenely over the enemy’s country. They did not remember the sympathy
of the town, nor the complacency of that fine little group of officers,
nor the glittering of the bright medals, nor the insolence of the white
woman who watched. They did not very much remember the grandeur of the
General, nor the pride they had known in the General. They remembered
their homes. The sweat ran down their faces under their helmets. Their
feet were heavy on the road. They marched steadily, jolting along,
patient, weary animals who remembered.
There was no sign of horror upon the earth. There was not a cloud in
the sky. The afternoon sunlight was golden over the land. The regiment
passed like a shadow through the bright country and was lost to view.
THE BEACH
The beach was long and smooth and the colour of cream. The woman
sitting in the sun stroked the beach with the pink palm of her hand
and said to herself, “The beach is perfect, the sun is perfect, the
sea is perfect. How pretty the little waves are, curling up the beach.
They are perfectly lovely. They are like a lace frill to the beach. And
the sea is a perfectly heavenly blue. It is odd to think of how old
the beach is and how old the sea is, and how much older that old, old
fellow, the fiery sun. The face of the beach is smooth as cream and the
sea to-day is a smiling infant, twinkling and dimpling, and the sun
is delicious; it is burning hot, like youth itself. It is good to be
alive. It is good to be young.” But she could not say this aloud so she
said to the man beside her in the wheel chair:
“How many millions of years has it taken to make the beach? How many
snails have left their shells behind them, do you think, to make all
this fine powdery sand? A million billion?” She let the sand run
through her strong white fingers and smiled, blinking in the sun and
looked away from the man in the invalid chair beside her toward the
horizon.
The man wriggled and hitched himself clumsily up in his chair; an ugly
grimace pulled his pale face to one side. He dared not look down over
the arm of his wheel chair at the bright head of the woman sitting
beside him. Her hair burned in the sunlight; her cheeks were pink. He
stole a timid, furtive look. Yes, she was as beautiful as a child. She
was perfectly lovely. A groan escaped him, or was it only a sigh?
She looked up quickly. “What is it, darling? Are you in pain? Are you
tired? Shall we go back?” Her voice sounded in the immense quiet of the
beach like a cricket chirping, but the word “darling” went on sounding
and sounding like a little hollow bell while she searched his features,
trying to find his old face, the one she knew, trying to work a magic
on him, remove and replace the sunken eyes, the pinched nose, the
bloodless wry mouth. “He’s not a stranger,” she said to herself. “He’s
not.” And she heard the faint mocking echo, “Darling, darling,” ringing
far away as if a bell-buoy out on the water were saying “Darling,
darling,” to make the little waves laugh.
“It’s only my foot, my left foot. Funny, isn’t it, that it goes on
throbbing. They cut it off two months ago.” He jerked a hand backward.
“It’s damn queer when you think of it. The old foot begins the old
game, then I look down and it’s not there any more, and I’m fooled
again.” He laughed. His laughter was such a tiny sound in the great
murmur of the morning that it might have been a sand-fly laughing. He
was thinking, “What will become of us? She is young and healthy. She
is as beautiful as a child. What shall we do about it?” And looking
into her eyes he saw the same question, “What shall we do?” and looked
quickly away again. So did she.
She looked past him at the row of ugly villas above the beach. Narrow
houses, each like a chimney, tightly wedged together, wedges of cheap
brick and plaster with battered wooden balconies. They were new
and shabby and derelict. All had their shutters up. All the doors
were bolted. How stuffy it must be in those deserted villas, in all
those abandoned bedrooms and kitchens and parlours. Probably there
were sand-shoes and bathing dresses and old towels and saucepans and
blankets rotting inside them with the sand drifting in. Probably the
window panes behind the shutters were broken and the mirrors cracked.
Perhaps when the aeroplanes dropped bombs on the town, pictures fell
down and mirrors and the china in the dark china closets cracked inside
these pleasure houses. Who had built them?
“Cowards built them,” he said in his new bitter, rasping voice, the
voice of a peevish, irritable sandfly. “Built them to make love in, to
cuddle in, to sleep in, hide in. Now they’re empty. The blighters have
left them to rot there. Rotten, I call it, leaving the swanky plage
to go to the bad like that, just because there’s a war on. A little
jazz now and a baccarat table would make all the difference, wouldn’t
it? It would cheer us up. You’d dance and I’d have a go at the tables.
That’s the casino over there, that big thing; that’s not empty, that’s
crowded, but I don’t advise you to go there. I don’t think you’d like
it. It’s not your kind of a crowd. It’s all right for me, but not for
you. No, it wouldn’t do for you--not even on a gala night.
“They’ve a gala night in our casino whenever there’s a battle. Funny
sort of place. You should watch the motors drive up then. The rush
begins about ten in the evening and goes on till morning. Quite like
Deauville the night of the Grand Prix. You never saw such a crowd.
They all rush there from the front, you know--the way they do from the
race-course--though, to be sure, it is not quite the real thing--not a
really smart crowd. No, not precisely, though the wasters in Deauville
weren’t much to look at, were they? Still, our crowd here aren’t
precisely wasters. Gamblers, of course, down and outs, wrecks--all gone
to pieces, parts of ’em missing, you know, tops of their heads gone,
or one of their legs. When they take their places at the tables, the
croupiers--that is to say, the doctors--look them over. Come closer,
I’ll whisper it. Some of them have no faces.”
“Darling, don’t.” She covered her own face, closed her ears to his tiny
voice and listened desperately with all her minute will to the large
tranquil murmur of the sea. “Darling, darling,” far out the bell-buoy
was sounding.
“Bless you,” said the thin, sharp, exasperated sandfly voice beside
her. “Little things like that don’t keep us away. If we can’t walk in
we get carried in. All that’s needed is a ticket. It’s tied to you like
a luggage label. It has your name on it in case you don’t remember your
name. You needn’t have a face, but a ticket you must have to get into
our casino.”
“Stop, darling--darling, stop!”
“It’s a funny place. There’s a skating rink. You ought to see it. You
go through the baccarat rooms and the dance hall to get to it. They’re
all full of beds. Rows of beds under the big crystal chandeliers, rows
of beds under the big gilt mirrors, and the skating rink is full of
beds, too. The sun blazes down through the glass roof. It’s like a
hot-house in Kew Gardens. There’s that dank smell of a rotting swamp,
the smell of gas gangrene. Men with gas gangrene turn green, you know,
like rotting plants.” He laughed. Then he was silent. He looked at her
cowering in the sand, her hands covering her face, and looked away
again.
He wondered why he had told her these things. He loved her. He hated
her. He was afraid of her. He did not want her to be kind to him. He
could never touch her again and he was tied to her. He was rotting
and he was tied to her perfection. He had no power over her any more
but the power of infecting her with his corruption. He could never
make her happy. He could only make her suffer. His one luxury now was
jealousy of her perfection, and his one delight would be to give in to
the temptation to make her suffer. He could only reach her that way. It
would be his revenge on the war.