WE VISIT THE FRENCH ARMY
"The Germans haven't thrown a single shell into Rheims today," said our
conducting officer apologetically. "Yesterday," he continued more
cheerfully, "they sent more than five hundred big ones and they wounded
two of my officers."
We left the little inn at the fringe of the town and rode into the
square in front of the cathedral. At the door the officer turned us over
to the curator. The old man led us up the aisle to a point not far from
the altar. Here he stopped, and pointing to a great shell hole in the
floor said: "On this spot in the year 496 Clovis, the King of the
Franks, was baptized by the blessed St. Remi with oil which was brought
from heaven in a holy flask by a dove."
Something flew over the cathedral just then, but we knew it was not a
dove. It whistled like a strong wind, and presently the shop of a
confectioner some ten blocks away folded up with a ripping, smashing
sound. Clovis, with his fourteen centuries wrapped about him, was safe
enough. He had quit the spot in time. But a younger man ducked. The old
guide did not even look up.
"The first stone of the present cathedral was laid in May, 1212, by the
Archbishop Alberic de Humbert," he said.
Another big shell tore the sky, and this time the smash was nearer. It
seemed certainly no more than nine blocks away. The young man began to
calculate. He figured that he was seven centuries down, while the
Germans had nine blocks to go. That was something, but the guide failed
to keep up his pace through the centuries. There were no more happy
hiatuses.
"Scholars dispute," he continued, "as to who was the architect of the
cathedral. Some say it was designed by Robert de Coucy; others name
Bernard de Soissons, but certain authorities hold to Gauthier de Reims
and Jean d'Orbais." Two more shells crossed the cathedral. The
controversy seemed regrettable and the young man shifted constantly from
foot to foot. He appeared to feel that there was less chance of being
hit if he were on the wing, so to speak.
"One or two have named Jean Loups," said the guide, but he shook his
head even as he mentioned him. It was evident that he had no patience
with Loups or his backers. Indeed, the heresy threw him off his stride,
and the next smash which came during the lull was more significant than
any of the others. The crash was the peculiarly disagreeable one which
occurs when a large shell strikes a small hardware store. Even the guide
noticed this shell. It reminded him of the war.
"Since April," he said, "the Germans have been bombarding Rheims with
naval guns. All the shells which they fire now are .320 or larger. They
fire about 150 shells a day at the city, mostly in the afternoon, and
they usually aim at the cathedral or some place near by."
The young man noted by his watch that it was just half-past one.
"A week ago the Germans fired a .320 shell through the roof, but it did
not explode. I will show it to you, but first I must ask you to touch
nothing, not even a piece of glass, for we want to put everything back
again that we can after the war."
On the floor there was evidence that some patient hand had made a
beginning of seeking to fit together in proper sequence all the
available tiny glass fragments from the shattered rose windows. It was a
pitiful jigsaw puzzle, which would not work. The curator stepped briskly
up the nave, and at the end of a hundred paces he stopped.
"This is the most dangerous portion of the cathedral," he explained.
"Most of the big shells have come in here." And he pointed to three
great holes in the ceiling. Then he showed us the monstrous shell which
had not exploded and the fragments of others which had. Down toward the
west end of town fresh fragments were being made. Each hole in the
cathedral roof sounded a different note as the shells raced overhead.
But the old curator was musing again. He had forgotten the war, even
though the smashed and twisted bits of iron and stone from yesterday's
clean hit lay at his feet.
"The first stone of the present cathedral was laid in May, 1212, by the
Archbishop Alberic de Humbert," he said. "Alberic gave all the money he
could gather and the chapter presented its treasury, and all about the
clergy appealed for funds in the name of God. Kings of France and mighty
lords made contributions, and each year there was a great pilgrimage,
headed by the image of the Blessed Virgin, through all the villages. And
the building grew and sculptors from all parts of France came and
embellished it and in 1430 it was finished. You see, gentlemen," he
said, "it took more than two hundred years to build our cathedral."
We left the cathedral then and paused for a minute in the square before
the statue of Jeanne d'Arc, who brought her king to Rheims and had him
crowned. In some parts of France devout persons speak of the Jeanne
statue in Rheims as a miracle because, although the cathedral has been
scarred and shattered and every building round the square badly
damaged, the statue of Jeanne is untouched. I looked closely and found
the miracle was not perfect. A tiny bit of the scabbard of Jeanne had
been snipped off by a flying shrapnel fragment, but the sword of Jeanne,
which is raised high above her head, has not a nick in it.
Crossing the square we went into the office of _L'Eclaireur de l'Est_.
This daily newspaper has no humorous column, no editorials, no sporting
page and no dramatic reviews, and yet is probably the most difficult
journal in the world to edit. The chief reportorial task of the staff of
_L'Eclaireur_ is to count the number of shells which fall into the city
each day. That doesn't sound hard. The reporter can hear them all from
his desk and many he can see, for the cathedral just across the street
is still the favorite target of the Germans. Sometimes the reporter does
not have to look so far. The office of _L'Eclaireur_ has been hit eleven
times during the bombardment and three members of the staff have been
killed. One big shell fell in the composing room and so now the paper
is set by hand. It is a single sheet and the circulation is limited to
the three or four thousand civilians, who have stuck to Rheims
throughout the bombardment. One of the few who remain is a man who keeps
a picture postcard shop in a building next door to the newspaper office.
His roof has been knocked down about his head and his business is hardly
thriving. I asked him why he remained.
"I started to go away several months ago after one day when they put
some gas shells into the town," he said. "The very next morning I put
all my things into a cart and started up that street there. I had gone
just about to the third street when a shell hit the house behind me. It
killed my horse and wrecked the wagon and so I picked up my things and
came back. It seemed to me I wasn't meant to go away from Rheims."
The shelling increased in violence before we left the office of
_L'Eclaireur_. One shell was certainly not more than a hundred and fifty
yards away, but the work went on without interruption. The printers who
were setting ads never looked up. Mostly these advertisements were of
houses in Rheims which were renting lower than ever before. If there was
anyone in the visiting party who felt uncomfortable he was unwilling to
show it, for just outside the door of the newspaper office there sat an
old lady with a lapful of fancy work. A shell came from over the hills
and, in the seconds while it whistled and then smashed, the old lady
threaded her needle.
A day later, when some of us were willing to confess that of all
miserable sounds the whistling of a shell was the meanest, we found a
curious kink in the brain of everyone. It was the universal experience
that the slightest bit of cover, however inadequate, gave a sense of
safety out of all proportion to its utility. Thus we all felt much more
uncomfortable in the square than when we stood in the composing room of
the newspaper which was shielded by the remains of a glass skylight. The
same curious psychological twist can be found among soldiers at the
front. Again and again men will be found taking apparent comfort in the
fact that half an inch of tin roof protects them from the shells of the
Germans.
One is always taken from the cathedral of Rheims to the wine cellars.
The children of darkness are invariably wiser than the children of light
and the champagne merchants have not suffered as the churchmen have.
Their business places have been knocked about their heads, but their
treasures are underground deep enough to defy the biggest shells. In the
cellar of a single company which we visited there were 12,000,000 quarts
of wine. Even the German invasion at the beginning of the war failed to
deplete this stock. Hundreds of people live in these cellars, which are
laid out in avenues and streets. We came first to New York, a street
with tier upon tier of wine bottles; then to Boston, then to Buenos
Ayres, then to Montreal. One of the visitors explained that the street
named New York contained the wine destined to be shipped to that city,
while Buenos Ayres contained the consignment for the Argentine capital,
and so on. We nodded acceptance of the theory, but the next wine-laden
street was called Carnot and the next was Jeanne d'Arc.
From the cellars we made a journey to a battery of French .75's. It was
a peaceful military station, for so well were the guns concealed that
they seemed exempt from German fire, in spite of the fact that they had
been in place for half a year. The men sat about underground playing
cards and reading newspapers, but the commander of the battery was
unwilling that we should go with such a peaceful impression of his guns.
He brought his men to action with a word or two and sent six shells
sailing at the German first line trenches for our benefit. We left, half
deafened, but delighted.
No child could be more eager to show a toy than is a French officer to
let a visitor see in some small fashion how the war wags. We went from
the battery to a first line trench. It was slow work down miles and
miles of camouflaged road to the communicating trench, and all along the
line we were stopped by kindly Frenchmen, who wanted us to see how their
dugouts were decorated or the nature of their dining room or the first
aid dressing station or any little detail of the war with which they
were directly concerned. Much can be done with a dugout when a few back
numbers of _La Vie Parisienne_ are available. Still, this scheme of
decoration may be carried too far. I will never forget the face of a Y.
M. C. A. man who joined us at a French officers' mess one day. It was a
low ceilinged room, with pine walls, but not an inch of wall was
visible, for a complete papering of _La Vie Parisienne_ pictures had
been provided. Among the ladies thus drafted for decorative purposes
there was perhaps chiffon enough to make a single arm brassard.
Trenches, save in the very active sectors, give the visitor a sense of
security. Open places are the ones which try the nerves of civilians,
and it was pleasant to walk with a wall of earth on either hand, even if
some of us did have to stoop a bit. From the point where we entered the
communication trench to the front line was probably not more than half a
mile as the crow flies--if, indeed, he is foolish enough to travel over
trenches--but the sunken pathway turned and twisted to such an extent
that it must have been two miles before we struck even the third line.
Here we were held while ever so many dugouts and kitchens and gas alarm
stations and telephones were exhibited for us. They were all included in
the routine of war, but of a sudden romance popped up from underground.
The conducting officer paused at the entrance of a passage. "Another
dugout" we thought.
"Bring them up!" said the officer to a soldier, and the poilu scrambled
down the steps and came up with a bird cage containing two birds.
"These are the last resort," explained the officer. "We send messages
from the trenches by telephone, if we can. If the wires are destroyed we
use flashes from a light, but if that station is also broken and we must
have help the birds are freed."
Neither pigeon seemed in the least puffed up over the responsibility
which rested upon him.
The German trenches were just 400 yards away from the first lines of the
French. It was possible to see them by peering over the rim of the
trench, but we quickly ducked down again. Presently we grew less
cautious, and one or two tried to stare the Germans out of countenance.
If they could see that strangers were peeping at them they paid no
attention.
The French officer in charge seemed embarrassed. He explained that it
was an exceptionally quiet day. Only the day before the Germans had been
active with trench mortars, and he couldn't understand why they were
sulking now. Possibly the bombardment from the French .75's, which had
been going on all day, had softened them a bit. He looked about the
trench dejectedly. The soldiers of the front line were playing cards,
eating soup or modeling little grotesque figures out of the soft rock
which lined the walls of the trenches. He called sharply to a soldier,
who fetched a box of rifle grenades out of a cubbyhole and sent half a
dozen, one after the other, spinning at the German lines. Probably they
fell short, or perhaps the Germans were simply sullen. At any rate, they
paid no attention. They were not disposed into being prodded to show
off for American visitors.
The officer suddenly thought up a method to retrieve the lost reputation
of his trench. If we could only stay until dark he would send us all out
on a patroling party right up to the wire in front of the German first
line. We declined, and made some little haste to leave this ever so
obliging officer. In another moment we feared he would organize an
exhibition offensive for our benefit and reserve us places in the first
wave.
If things were quiet on the ground there was plenty of activity aloft.
It was a clear day, and both sides had big sausage balloons up for
observation. Once a German plane tried to attack a French sausage, but
it was driven off, and all day long the Germans sought without success
to wing the balloon with one of their long range guns. In that
particular sector on that particular day the French unquestionably had
the mastery of the air. We saw four of their 'planes in the air to every
one German, and once a fleet of five cruised over the German lines. The
Boche opened on them with shrapnel. It was a clear day, without a
breath of wind, and the white puffs clung to the sky at the point where
they broke. Presently the French planes swooped much lower, and the
Germans opened on them with machine guns. Somebody has said that machine
gun fire sounds as if a crazy carpenter was shingling a roof, and
somebody else has compared the noise to a typewriter being operated in
an upper room, but it is still more like a riveting machine. It has a
business-like, methodical sound to me. To my ear there is no malice in a
machine gun, but then I have never heard it from an aeroplane.
The officer in charge accompanied us to the end of the communicating
trench.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
We told him that we were going directly to Paris.
"Have a good time," he said, "but leave one dinner and one drink for
me."
"You are going to Paris?" we asked.
He looked over toward the German wire and smiled a little. "I may," he
said.