ROUND ABOUT
BAR-LE-DUC
BY
SUSANNE R. DAY
AUTHOR OF "THE AMAZING PHILANTHROPISTS," ETC.
London
SKEFFINGTON & SON, LTD.
34 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. 2
PUBLISHERS TO HIS MAJESTY THE KING
TO
CAROL
FOR WHOSE EYES
THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN
PREFACE
TO CAROL
Dear, you asked me to write for you the story of my work and adventures
in France, and through all the agonising hours of incubation and
parturition you have given me your unfailing sympathy, encouragement
and help. You have even chastened me (it was a devastating hour!) for
my--and, I believe, for the book's--good, and when we discovered that
the original form--that of intimate personal letters written directly
to you--did not suit the subject matter, you acquiesced generously in a
change, the need for which I, at least, shall ever deplore.
And now that the last words have been written and Finis lies upon the
page, I know how short it all falls of my ideal and how unworthy it is
of your high hope of me. And yet I dare to offer it to you, knowing
that what is good in it is yours, deep delver that you are for the gold
that lies--somewhere--in every human heart.
Twenty months in the war zone ought, one would imagine, to have
provided me with countless hair-breadth escapes, thrills, and perhaps
even shockers with which to regale you, but the adventures are all
those of other people, an occasional flight to a cellar in a raid being
all we could claim of danger. And so, instead of being a book about
English women in France, it is mainly a book about French women in
their own country, and therein lies its chief, if not its only claim to
merit.
Humanness was the quality which above all others you asked for, and if
it possesses that I shall know it has not been written in vain.
SUSANNE R. DAY.
_London,
January 1918._
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. MAINLY INTRODUCTORY 11
II. EN ROUTE--SERMAIZE-LES-BAINS 16
III. FIRST IMPRESSIONS 29
IV. À TRAVERS BAR-LE-DUC 47
V. SETTLING IN 61
VI. THE BASKET-MAKERS OF VAUX-LES-PALAMIES 73
VII. IN WHICH WE PLAY TRUANT 87
VIII. THE MODERN CALVARY 107
IX. IN WHICH WE BECOME EMISSARIES OF LE
BON DIEU 125
X. PRIESTS AND PEOPLE 136
XI. REPATRIÉES 160
XII. STORM-WRACK FROM VERDUN 179
XIII. MORE STORM-WRACK 198
XIV. AIR RAIDS 207
XV. M. LE POILU 223
ENVOI 255
ROUND ABOUT BAR-LE-DUC
CHAPTER I
MAINLY INTRODUCTORY
Relief Work in the War Zone. It did sound exciting. No wonder I
volunteered, but, oh dear! great was the plenitude of my ignorance.
I vaguely understood that we were to distribute clothes and rabbits,
kitchen utensils, guano and other delectable necessaries to a stricken
people, but not that we were to wear a uniform and that the uniform
would be made "by post." If I had there might never have been a chapter
to write nor a tale to tell.
That uniform!--shall I ever forget it? Or the figure I cut when I
put it on? Of course, like any sensible female woman, I wanted to
have it made by my own tailor and in my own way. Strict adherence
to the general scheme, of course, with reasonable modification to
suit the individual. But Authority said NO. Only by one man and in
one place could that uniform be made. Frankly sceptical at first, I
am now a devout believer. For it was certainly unique; perhaps in
strict truth I ought to say that several specimens of it were unique.
There was one--but this is a modest tale told by a modest woman.
Stifle curiosity, and be content with knowing that the less cannot
contain the greater. And then let us go hence and ponder upon the
sweet reasonableness of man, or at least of one man who, when asked to
produce the uniform hats, replied, "But what for, Madam?"
"Well, to try on, of course."
"Try on? Why ever should you want to do that?"
Perhaps you won't believe this? But it is true.
Oh, the agonies of those last days of preparation, and the heartrending
impossibility of getting any really useful or practical information
about an outfit!
"Wear pyjamas, a mess-tin, and a water-bottle. And of course you must
have a sleeping-bag and a bath."
This was at least encouraging. Were we going to sleep _à la belle
étoile_, a heap of stones our pillow, our roof the sky? You can
imagine how I thrilled. But there was the bath. Even in France.... I
relinquished the stars with a sigh and realised that Authority was
talking learnedly about the uniform, talking swiftly, confidently,
assuredly, and as I listened conviction grew that once arrayed in it
every difficulty and danger would melt away, and the French nation
prostrate itself before my blushing feet in one concentrated desire to
pay homage and assist. One danger certainly melted away, but, alas! it
took Romance with it. As a moral life-belt that uniform has never been
equalled.
And then there was the kit-bag. Ye gods, I KNOW that villainous
thing was possessed of the devil. From the day I found it, lying a
discouraged heap upon my bedroom floor, to the day when it tucked
itself on board ship in direct defiance of my orders and invited the
Germans to come and torpedo it--which they promptly did--it never
ceased to annoy. It lost its key in Paris, and on arrival at Sermaize
declined to allow itself to be opened. It was dumped in my "bedroom"
(of which more later), the lock was forced, Sermaize settled itself to
slumber. I proceeded to unpack, plunged in a hand and drew forth--a
pair of blue serge trousers.
Wild yells for help brought Sermaize to my door. What the owner of the
trousers thought when his broken-locked bag was flung back upon him,
history does not relate. He had opened what he thought was HIS bag, so
possibly he was beyond speech. He was a shy young man and he had never
been in France before.
If the thing--the bag, I mean, not the shy young man--had been pretty
or artistic one might have forgiven it all its sins. Iniquity should
always be beautiful. But that bag was plain, _mais d'une laideur
effroyable_. Just for all the world like a monstrous obscene sausage,
green with putrefaction and decay. What I said when I tried to pack
is not fit for a young and modest ear. I planted it on its hind legs,
seized a pair of boots, tried to immure them in its depths, slipped and
fell into it head foremost. It was then the devil chuckled. I heard
him. He had been waiting, you see--he knew.
It is some consolation that a certain not-to-be-named friend
was not on the hotel steps as I stole forth that torrid June
morning. Every imp of the thousand that possess her would have
danced with glee. How she would have laughed: for there I was,
the not-to-be-tried-on-uniform-hat, a grotesque little inverted
pudding-bowl of a thing, perched like a fungoid growth on the top of my
head, the uniform itself hanging blanket-like about my shrinking form
(it was heavy enough for the arctic regions), a water-bottle which had
refused point-blank to go into the kit-bag hanging over one shoulder,
and a bulging brown knapsack jutting blasphemously from my back. What
a vision! Tartarin of Tarascon climbing the Alps with an ironmonger's
shop on his back fades ignominiously in comparison. But then I wasn't
just climbing commonplace tourist-haunted Alps. I was going "to the
Front." At least, so my family said when making pointed and highly
encouraging remarks about my will. That the "Front" in question was
twenty miles from a trench was a mere detail. Why go to the War Zone if
you don't swagger? I swaggered. Not much, you know--just the faintest
æsthetic suspicion of a swagger, and then.... Then Nemesis fell--fell
as I passed a mirror, and saw.... I crawled on all fours into France.
I crawled on all fours into Paris. Think of it, PARIS! No wonder French
women murmured, "Mais, Mademoiselle, vous êtes très devouée." I am a
modest woman (I have mentioned this before, but it bears repetition),
but whenever I thought of that uniform I believed them.
If Paris had not been at war she would probably have arrested me at the
Douane, and I should have deserved it. Fancy insulting her by wearing
such clothes, and on such a night--a clear, purple, perfect summer
night, when she lay like a fairy city caught in the silvery nets of the
moon. And yet there was a strange, ominous hush over it all. The city
lying quiet and, oh, so still! It seemed to be waiting, waiting, a cup
from which the wine had been poured upon the red floor of war.
Wandering along the deserted quays, wondering what the morrow would
bring.... What a night that was, the sheer exquisite beauty of it! The
Conciergerie dark against the sky, the gleaming path of the river, and
then the Louvre and the Tuileries all hushed to languorous, passionate
beauty in the arms of the moon.
Don't you love Paris, every stone of her? I do. But I was not allowed
to stay there. Inexorable Fate sent me the next morning in a taxi and
a state of excusable excitement to the Gare de l'Est, where, kit-bag,
mess-tin, water-bottle and all, I was immured in the Paris-Nancy
express and borne away through a morning of glittering sunshine to
Vitry-le-François, there to be deposited upon the platform and in the
arms of a grey-coated and becomingly-expectant young man.