EN PERMISSION
At noon time, on dispensary days, I sometimes lunched with the doctors in
Mme. Lefèvre’s kitchen. It was a heterogeneous spot, with two beds (one
being stored for a niece), two cats, and a few neighbours always sitting
near the fire. Usually the neighbours were waiting for _la factrice_. A
tap at the window, and Madame ran to open it, and received a handful of
letters which the postmistress brought each day by bicycle from Nesle.
Were it cold, she herself, a capable, pleasant-faced woman, came in
to join the group for a moment, threw back her long cape, and warmed
her numb hands. Meantime spectacles were brought out and the envelopes
scanned. It was not alone of the return of the refugees that the village
lived in hope. They might come unannounced, but the soldiers, _en
permission_,—that was different. Any day Albert or Henri might write that
he was coming home!
[Illustration: _C’est un coup de fourreau de sabre._
[A cut of a sword-scabbard.]]
And when they came! It was in Mme. Lefèvre’s kitchen again that I had
the pleasure of seeing the greeting given to a soldier in faded blue. A
bronzed and bearded man he was, the father of a family. But the family
alas! the wife and the children, were _avec les Boches_. M. Huillard
seemed to have returned therefore, unheralded. As he opened the door, the
neighbours rose with exclamations; the men grasping his hands, the women
presenting one cheek and then the other for a kiss. Questions followed:
Where had he been stationed? At Verdun, and, more lately, at St. Quentin.
“At St. Quentin? Have you seen Narcisse, then?” Mme. Carpentier inquired
eagerly. “Yes, your husband was well. I have a letter.” And M. Huillard
fumbled in his pockets and brought out a thumbed envelope with the
cramped address: Mme. Regina Carpentier, Canizy, Somme.
An account of the recent bombardment is curtailed by M. Huillard’s own
desire for information. This is his first visit to the village since his
leave-taking during the tragic mobilisation of 1914. He has known, of
course, of the German occupation; he has heard the terrible news of the
deportation of wife and children. He has seen other devastated villages.
But to-day, for the first time, he looks upon the ruins of his own home.
I saw him standing alone that afternoon before the sagging door, which
bore the staring military number 25, and beside it, chalked inscriptions
in German and in English jostling each other: _Gott mit uns._ _Hot ᛭
buns._ Within, thistles grew about the hearth. M. Huillard uttered no
sound, and shed no tears, but his face, as he turned away, was set in a
white hatred, and his right hand rose to heaven in an unspoken vow.
No soldier on his ten days’ leave remained idle. Mme. Cordier’s handsome
son, looking even more handsome in the uniform of an Alpine _chasseur_,
was no exception. In fact, when I first saw him, the uniform, including
his decoration, was covered by a mason’s white blouse. Up on a ladder, he
was white-washing the walls of the stable in which his family then lived.
A huge brick manger in a dark corner was startingly brought out by his
brush. It served as a kitchen table, and was laughingly referred to as
one of the conveniences of the _ménage_. In another home, I found one day
a soldier-brother knocking up a cupboard out of rough planks. Cheerful
was the sound of his vigorous hammer strokes, and cheerful the sight of
a young and merry face among the ruins. It mattered not whether he had a
bed to sleep in—one of the most difficult requests we had to refuse was
that of a bed to a soldier—the younger _poilu en permission_ was always
gay. If his mother worked, he helped her; and day after day through the
Christmas holidays one of these boys walked to the Château each morning
to help Mme. Topin chop our wood. I happened in upon her on the eve of
his departure. Her tiny cabin was full of an odour most appetising after
my long day’s walk. Over a glowing fire, she was turning waffles, “to put
in his knapsack,” she explained. But he had one the less for my having
called; and over it his mother sprinkled half of the last teacupful of
sugar she possessed.
Mme. Topin had another son also serving with the colours, who came home
quite often to see his wife, because he was making a slow recovery from
gas-injured lungs. She, during his absence, taught in the village school,
while her old mother kept house and took care of three-year-old Guy. M.
Topin it was who showed me around his ruined yard one day, pointing out
the place of the five-room cottage, and telling me the colours of the
roses whose blackened stalks still remained against the walls. “This was
white and very fragrant; that yellow. I planted it on Guy’s birthday.
Here we had a bed of mignonette. Take care, Guy—pardon, Mademoiselle.”
And he stooped to wrench away from the child’s fingers a long cartridge
picked up in the débris. “A German bullet,” he explained, handing it to
me. “There are hundreds of them about.”
As I have said, the soldier _en permission_ expected to work. Yet I know
of one who was assigned to more of a-task than he relished. Him, hapless
being, I first encountered down by the old Château at Canizy, hunting
rabbits for a stew. But as I remembered the dimensions of his mother’s
_baraque_, it seemed to me that self-interest might prompt him to leave
his hunting to assist me for a time. Besides his grandmother, his mother,
a brother and a sister, there was an aunt who had arrived to lodge with
the family,—a _réfugiée_ from near Péronne. Utterly destitute and unhappy
was the aunt. The fact that her husband and her daughter were still in
the slavery from which she had escaped, would be enough to sadden any
one, but she whispered to me that her sister did not make her welcome.
At the time, we were much in need of a domestic at our camp. “Would you
like to come and work for us, perhaps,” I suggested. “We have no lodging,
but I will find you a shelter in Hombleux from which you can walk over
with Madame our cook.” Rash promise, to which I added a complete outfit
of furniture and two francs a day. The offer was accepted.
From pillar to post, I then went to Hombleux. A regiment _en repos_ had
been quartered there since I had made arrangements with the baker’s wife
for a room in her tidy loft. Regiments succeeded one another rapidly,
and during their sojourns there was literally no lodging to be had. I
was finally directed to a corner in the outbuilding of a former convent
school which was considered habitable. My soldier I pressed into service
to assist its quondam tenant, who had moved out because it was so cold,
in removing the vegetables, wood and furniture she still had stored
there. He looked on while a resourceful young girl pasted oiled paper on
the iron window frame; he went to the woods and chopped and hauled a tree
for fuel; he brought over at the same time a plank with which to mend the
door. This took a day, which I, meantime, spent in Ham. There I bought
a bed, mattress and bedding, a stove, a pipe, an elbow for the same, a
chair, a table, a metal wash basin and a pitcher, a saucepan, a little
set of dishes, a lamp, a brush and a broom. It is surprising how many
things are necessary for even a primitive existence. Two days more were
consumed in setting these few articles in place, and all the neighbours
helped.
The snow had come, meantime, and the soldier returned to rabbit hunting.
As he remarked on pointing out the little roads beaten by them through
the weeds, “They look much better _en casserole_.” It remained for our
own soldier at the château to bring our domestic to her new home. One
frosty morning, Tambour and the cart awaited me after breakfast, and I
set forth. Old Tambour appeared none too steady on the trot to which I
urged him. “_Ça glisse_,” explained Carlos, and we relapsed into a walk.
In fact, all the way to Canizy we walked, the shrewd wind biting nose
and ears and coursing under the blankets on the high seat. Carlos got
out, winding the lines about the whipstock. The horse floundered through
drifts, and he, adjusting his cap to the veering gusts, trudged at his
head. At length, we debouched upon the direct road to the village. But,
barring our way was a machine-gun squad. Already the red signals had been
posted and the route was _défendu_. Even as we halted, came volleys like
staccato hail. On other occasions, with honking horn, we have run this
gauntlet, the sentries halting the fire for us to pass. But to-day, I
judged it safer to turn down into a hollow, and skirt the action. Thus
delayed, it was near noon when we turned into the gate of the Château at
Canizy.
We were expected, however; coffee was hot upon the stove, and the soldier
_en permission_ served it, stirring the cups in rotation with the one
family spoon. Madame, our new domestic, was ready also, with quite a
store of bedding and clothing done up in a sack. Two kisses apiece,
a last admonition, a promise to come to see her on Sunday, and she
climbed up over the wheel. To her, I imagine, the journey to Hombleux
seemed, like a voyage to a foreign country. Nor was she welcomed, as I
afterwards learned, by her new neighbours in the commune. It seems, one
should have gone to the mayor first for permission to install her; and
certainly one should have paid more money to that inconvenienced lady,
the former tenant. As Madame said, “She talks most unkindly.” To add to
the newcomer’s hardships, the winter wind ripped the oiled linen from the
window, and her nephew, the soldier, never returned to mend the door.
“_Bien mal logée_,” having to walk a mile and a half through the snow at
dawn and after dark, it is not to be wondered at that she made a final
choice of her sister’s sharp tongue and warm fire, and left our employ.
[Illustration: —_Si j’étais grand...._
[If I were grown up!]]
Akin to the soldier _en permission_ is the soldier _en repos_. Of the
latter class was our Carlos, who was given us by M. le Sous-Préfet,
together with a horse and two carts. He was to report during his stay
to no one but Mlle. la Directrice, nor would the authorities take any
direct cognisance of him save in case of her complaint. A southerner was
Carlos, a dapper man from the Basque provinces. There he had a wife and
two children whom he had not seen for three years. But he expected a
_permission_ shortly, he said; and that may have reconciled him to the
uncongenial hewing of wood and drawing of water to which he was detailed.
Day long he drove, or chopped trees, or cleaned the stable, as advised.
His only diversion appeared to be our milk maid,—a harmless enough one,
I presume; for she told us proudly and often how she received a letter
from her soldier-husband every day. Nevertheless, there was visible
sadness when one morning Carlos announced that he had been transferred.
And was he then going home? No, his _permission_ had been taken away; he
was returning to the front. He and Tambour were to join the artillery.
Poor old Tambour, faithful, plodding; one knew not for which to feel more
compassion, the horse or the master, as one pictured them dragging into
position the grey seventy-fives! “Good-bye, then,” I said, “I am sorry.”
“O, what would you,” he replied. “So it goes. But you, you are leaving
also. Some one has told me, for America—_La bonne chance, Mademoiselle_.”
Unlike Carlos only in that they came by regiments, were the shifting
troops taken at intervals from the trenches for a brief rest in our more
habitable villages. One saw them, a weary line of blue, marching down
the roads, flanked by stretcher bearers, and followed by a provision
train. Once settled, they stood about the corners of the streets or in
the gaping doorways; a disconsolate enough addition to the ruins. Or at
the camp kitchens, drawn up to one side, they grouped themselves around
huge cauldrons of soup. Sometimes a more ambitious company set to work
to clean up the village and built an outdoor bathing tank which was much
in use. On one occasion, a dashing troop of blue devils gave military
concerts each evening. An incongruous sight was the band, drawn sprucely
up in a desolate courtyard, and a strangely stirring sound, the music
floating through the empty streets, of _Ce que c’est qu’ un drapeau_.
Often soldiers and even officers came over to see us at the Château and
to ask for cigarettes or shoes. If one had time to listen, they talked
for hours on the war. They were never boastful, these soldiers; they
had a just estimate of the German strength of organisation; they had no
illusions as to their own personal fate. Each one expected to die at
his post. Patient, sturdy, intelligent, they gave one confidence that,
however heavy the dawn bombardments, our lines would hold. And if our
lines, then all the lines manned by them with such spiritual as well as
physical courage. The morale of the _poilu_, unflinching, will yet win
the war.