“Albert has gone.”
I jump down from the little vicinal (light railway) train, which always
stops so obligingly in Manhay Street opposite the inn, and press Madame
Job’s hand in silent sympathy.
“To Liège?” I ask after a pause.
“He is in the forts, Mademoiselle,” she answers tearfully.
So Madame’s son Albert, the baker, is a soldier too. Well, he will do
his duty like all these Belgians. But who will bake for the countryside?
I greet the young Lepouses, Mademoiselle Irma, the pretty eldest
daughter, the sixteen-year-old Louisa, Messieurs Floribert and Alfred,
the stalwart sons. Last of all, the inn’s proprietor, wrinkled kindly
Monsieur Job. I am introduced to M. le Précepteur,[A] the postmaster,
at the post office, and his wife and children. Together we sit out on
the _terrasse_ and discuss the one and only topic.
[Footnote A: M. le Précepteur is a descendant of the owners of
Hougomont.]
“Caught in the war. A nice ending to my summer’s holiday,” I say
cheerfully.
“You had better return to England to-day—it will be your last chance,”
says a dispatch carrier, a khaki-clad, dusty figure standing before us
in the village street.
“The trains are taken for the soldiers. Besides, I have only Belgian
paper money—unnegotiable now.”
“Walk then.”
“Too far,” I protest.
“Please yourself, Mademoiselle. But in war-time, a little hotel, on a
high road, with the post office opposite and the Gendarmerie next door,
is not the place of residence I should personally choose. Good-bye,
Mademoiselle; good-bye, all. I must be off.”
The dispatch carrier mounts his machine, bends over the handle bars in
best professional style, and is quickly lost to view in a cloud of dust.
We remain chatting out-of-doors for a little while. There is a careworn
look on the faces of the women, a certain quiet determination in
the eyes of the men. I understand. At midnight, in a neighbouring
village, I had heard the dreaded Tocsin sound out the call to arms.
The tones of the harsh, crude bell, mingled with the agonised cries of
sorrow-stricken women. No one slept. Some were helping loved ones to
make their preparations for departure, others were quietly watching
the ceaseless stream of men pass by. Hour after hour they came pouring
into the village from outlying hamlets, summoned by beacon fires from
the surrounding hills. Many paused to admire the long queue of patient,
fly-tormented horses waiting to be shoed by the _maréchal_. In five
hours the last message had been delivered, the last good-bye said. The
men were gone. But the memory of their going is not easily effaced....