There was one house with a roof on it in Peronne. And there an
officer came by moonlight on his way back from leave. He was looking
for his battalion which had moved and was now somewhere in the
desolation out in front of Peronne, or else was marching there—no
one quite knew. Someone said he had seen it marching through
Tincourt; the R.T.O. said Brie. Those who did not know were always
ready to help, they made suggestions and even pulled out maps. Why
should they not? They were giving away no secret, because they did
not know, and so they followed a soldier’s natural inclination to
give all the help they could to another soldier. Therefore they
offered their suggestions like old friends. They had never met
before, might never meet again; but La France introduces you, and
five minute acquaintance in a place like Peronne, where things may
change so profoundly in one night, and where all is so tense by the
strange background of ruin that little portions of time seem very
valuable, five minutes there seem quite a long time. And so they are,
for what may not happen in five minutes any day now in France. Five
minutes may be a page of history, a chapter even, perhaps a volume.
Little children with inky fingers years hence may sit for a whole
hour trying to learn up and remember just what happened during five
minutes in France some time about now. These are just reflections
such as pass through the mind in the moonlight among vast ruins and
are at once forgotten.
Those that knew where the battalion was that the wandering officer
looked for were not many; these were reserved and spoke like one that
has a murder on his conscience, not freely and openly: for of one
thing no one speaks in France, and that is the exact position of a
unit. One may wave one’s hand vaguely eastwards and say “Over
there,”, but to name a village and the people that occupy it is to
offend against the silence that in these days broods over France, the
solemn hush befitting so vast a tragedy.
And in the end it seemed better to that officer to obey the R.T.O.
and to go by his train to Brie that left in the morning, and that
question settled, there remained only food and sleep.
Down in the basement of the big house with a roof there was a
kitchen, in fact there was everything that a house should have; and
the more that one saw of simple household things, tables, chairs, the
fire in the kitchen, pieces of carpet, floors, ceilings, and even
windows, the more one wondered; it did not seem natural in Peronne.
Picture to yourself a fine drawing-room with high ornamental walls
and all the air about it of dignity, peace and ease, that were so
recently gone; only just, as it might have been, stepped through the
double doorway; skirts, as it were, of ladies only just trailed out
of sight; and then turn in fancy to that great town streaming with
moonlight, full of the mystery that moonlight always brings, but
without the light of it; all black, dark as caverns of earth where no
light ever came, blacker for the moonlight than if no moon were
there; sombre, mourning and accursed, each house in the great streets
sheltering darkness amongst its windowless walls; as though it nursed
disaster, having no other children left, and would not let the moon
peer in on its grief or see the monstrous orphan that it fondled.
In the old drawing-room with twenty others, the wandering officer lay
down to sleep on the floor, and thought of old wars that came to the
cities of France a long while ago. To just such houses as this, he
thought, men must have come before and gone on next day to fight in
other centuries; it seemed to him that it must have been more
romantic then. Who knows?
He had a bit of carpet to lie on. A few more officers came in in the
early part of the night, and talked a little and lay down. A few
candles were stuck on tables here and there. Midnight would have
struck from the towers had any clock been left to strike in Peronne.
Still talk went on in low voices here and there. The candles burned
low and were fewer. Big shadows floated along those old high walls.
Then the talk ceased and everyone was still: nothing stirred but the
shadows. An officer muttered in sleep of things far thence, and was
silent. Far away shells thumped faintly. The shadows, left to
themselves, went round and round the room, searching in every corner
for something that was lost. Over walls and ceiling they went and
could not find it. The last candle was failing. It flared and
guttered. The shadows raced over the room from corner to corner. Lost,
and they could not find it. They hurried desperately in those last
few moments. Great shadows searching for some little thing. In the
smallest nook they sought for it. Then the last candle died. As the
flame went up with the smoke from the fallen wick all the great
shadows turned and mournfully trailed away.