He responded: “You can leave here anything you don’t care to carry
further; I’ll take care of it.”
I looked at the _gendarme_. I looked several blocks through him. My lip
did something like a sneer. My hands did something like fists.
At this crisis along comes a little boy. May God bless all males
between seven and ten years of age in France!
The _gendarme_ offered a suggestion, in these words: “Have you any
change about you?” He knew, of course, that the sanitary official’s
first act had been to deprive me of every last cent. The _gendarme’s_
eyes were fine. They reminded me of … never mind. “If you have change,”
said he, “you might hire this kid to carry some of your baggage.” Then
he lit a pipe which was made in his own image, and smiled fattily.
But herein the v-f-g had bust his milk-jug. There is a slit of a pocket
made in the uniform of his criminal on the right side, and completely
covered by the belt which his criminal always wears. His criminal had
thus outwitted the gumshoe fraternity.
The _gosse_ could scarcely balance my smaller parcel, but managed after
three rests to get it to the station platform; here I tipped him
something like two cents (all I had) which, with dollar-big eyes, he
took and ran.
A strongly-built, groomed _apache_ smelling of cologne and onions
greeted my v-f-g with that affection which is peculiar to _gendarmes_.
On me he stared cynically, then sneered frankly.
With a little tooty shriek the funny train tottered in. My captors had
taken pains to place themselves at the wrong end of the platform. Now
they encouraged me to HurryHurryHurry.
I managed to get under the load and tottered the length of the train to
a car especially reserved. There was one other criminal, a
beautifully-smiling, shortish man, with a very fine blanket wrapped in
a water-proof oilskin cover. We grinned at each other (the most cordial
salutation, by the way, that I have ever exchanged with a human being)
and sat down opposite one another—he, plus my baggage which he helped
me lift in, occupying one seat; the _gendarme_-sandwich, of which I
formed the _pièce de résistance_, the other.
The engine got under way after several feints; which pleased the
Germans so that they sent several scout planes right over the station,
train, us _et tout_. All the French anticraft guns went off together
for the sake of sympathy; the guardians of the peace squinted
cautiously from their respective windows, and then began a debate on
the number of the enemy while their prisoners smiled at each other
appreciatively.
“_Il fait chaud_,” said this divine man, prisoner, criminal, or what
not, as he offered me a glass of wine in the form of a huge tin cup
overflowed from the canteen in his slightly unsteady and delicately
made hand. He is a Belgian. Volunteered at beginning of war. Permission
at Paris, overstayed by one day. When he reported to his officer, the
latter announced that he was a deserter—I said to him, “It is funny. It
is funny I should have come back, of my own free will, to my company. I
should have thought that being a deserter I would have preferred to
remain in Paris.” The wine was terribly cold, and I thanked my divine
host.
Never have I tasted such wine.
They had given me a chunk of war-bread in place of blessing when I left
Noyon. I bit into it with renewed might. But the divine man across from
me immediately produced a sausage, half of which he laid simply upon my
knee. The halving was done with a large keen poilu’s knife.