We no longer inhabit a cheerful Belgian village. In an unaccustomed
country we must train ourselves to meet new laws. On Sunday we go to
church. After service from the good Curé, M. le Directeur reads out to
us a list of rules.
We must not collect in crowds, nor speak more than three in the village
street.
We must not hide in the houses, but go about our ordinary avocations
when the soldiers pass, or they will suspect a plot.
We must never run away—unless we want a bullet in the back—but throw
up our hands when called upon to do so.
We must never do this and we must remember that, or we may expect to be
bowled over as lightly as the wood blocks in that skittle alley which
is the “distraction” of the Ardennois Sunday.
A German officer has frankly told us that the very smallest reprisal
for any inimical act will be house-burning. Should a civilian dare
to fire on the German troops, well, that village may expect to be
decimated of its remaining men. Besides this the Teutons do not trust
our word. Twice to-day an officer has forced me to drink first from his
glass of beer. The young Job-Lepouses have to do the same. A suspicious
Uhlan intends to run no unnecessary risk.
No peace for the wicked! There is the air peril to contend with. A
sound often heard here, like a hundred threshing machines in full
swing, made me think at first that the peasants were working in the
fields. The mystery is solved when glancing far, far up where sky and
cloud seem to meet, an aeroplane is seen buzzing slowly overhead.
Sometimes we see it near enough to recognise its white body with the
black tail-planes and tips to wings. German, of course, always German.
We never have any other here. I watch the machine as it begins to
descend at an acute angle. A thousand feet down, it hovers for a while.
Finally, it planes earthwards like some great, ominous magpie until
hidden from sight in the hollow of a distant field.
“One for sorrow.”
Another machine comes sailing majestically towards us from the nebulous
distance.
“Two for mirth.”
It will take us all our time to derive any amusement from these
bomb-dropping fiends....
A brain-wave has passed over the village. The word “red-cross” is
mentioned. M. le Directeur suggests with admirable sense that the inn
should be turned into a hospital for the wounded soldiers. Wonderful
the enthusiasm this idea has evoked. Extraordinary the unanimity with
which it is received by the peasants.
M. le Précepteur wishes to hang a flag out of his window too. His step
becomes more elastic, his expression brighter at the mere idea. This
seems to him an opportune way of staving off the awful, possible hour
of arrest. He is actuated, too, by that beautiful sense of compassion
which makes the Belgian nature so attractive.
The burnt-out old lady is quite vociferous with joy at the prospect
of nursing the enemy. It never occurs to her that she will thereby
heap coals of fire on the miscreants who so basely tried to destroy
her little home. At this moment she is sitting out in the potato-patch
industriously picking over the flock in her mattress. The adjacent
hedge is hung with odds and ends of half-burnt coverlets and clothes.
I know she is scheming in her generous Walloon brain how much of
her slender household stock can be spared for the use of the wounded
soldiers.
These flags—the great red cross on the white ground—are produced in
the shortest space of time. We breathe more freely when they float out
majestically from the hotel windows. We are as afire with first-aid
enthusiasm as any ignorant sixteen-year-old Miss who has volunteered
for the front. Every woman in the village has offered her help. She
will insist on giving it too. I pity the first victim who arrives. He
is likely to be pulled into a thousand pieces!
Scarcely any Uhlans have passed through to-day. Those who did were well
behaved. This fact and the Red Cross flag have combined to make us
quite jovial. The skittle alley is in use again. A group of villagers
is gathered on the _terrasse_ telling war-tales which would make our
English fishermen green with envy.
One tale no one tells, however, out of respect to Madame Job. That
is the tale of the Liège forts. We are all under a solemn pledge to
believe that they are still intact. We know better. Anyone would know
better after the awful cannonade of the last few days. But in our
common humanity we cannot bear that Madame Job should know before she
must, that her Albert “in-the-forts-there-below” is dead, safe though
she thought him in those forts, “the-forts-which-are-so-strong.”...