_Friday._—Two men of the Brandenburger Cuirassiers come into the inn
before breakfast. I am brought forward, as usual, to interpret. The
shorter of the two, a square-jawed, swashbuckling kind of fellow,
demands hay. I reply with superb mendacity, “We have no hay.” He
follows this up with enquiries as to the disposition of the enemy. My
face becomes vacant, my German resolves itself into a fluent mass of
unintelligible sounds.
Woe is me! At that moment the door into the yard opens, and M. Alfred
is seen crossing the clean wide space, bearing stablewards half a
hayrick on a long pitchfork.
The Cuirassier gives a growl, thrusts his pug-nosed, underbred face
almost into mine, and lands me a blow that knocks me up against the
wall.
“Isn’t that hay?” he asks fiercely, pointing.
“Hay, but for us,” I answer calmly.
“You lie!” He prods at my left shoulder with his bayonet, but he
either fears to strike hard or the padded arrangement worn under my
dress with a view to such contingencies does its work well. My wound is
nothing but an abrasion of the skin.
The swashbuckler swaggers into the yard and coolly appropriates the
hayrick. His friend, a gentle-faced, blond giant looks down at me with
regret.
“You need not fear. I will see that you come to no harm. My friend
there is a wild fellow,” he murmurs apologetically.
“Fear. Ich bin Engländerin,” I answer simply.
He laughs. “You are as brave as your brave little army. But—such a
mere handful of men. How can it stand up against us!”
The swashbuckler returns. They leave the inn together and later
appear before the Gendarmerie with the weird medley of weapons which
every cavalryman seems to carry. They hammer at the stable door. It
is smashed and their horses feeding in the empty stalls in less time
than it takes to relate. Their next step is to batter at the door of
the Gendarmerie itself. I go to the back of the house whence a narrow
window commands a view of the place. Perfidious people! They have no
respect for the sanctity of home. The Commandant’s little treasures
are quickly found. They run from room to room, opening drawers and
rummaging through the contents, even overturning furniture. One man
gets hold of a pile of letters, tied with ribbon. Love-letters perhaps.
Downstairs they go and bring up a ham, bread, some wine. A
“_pique-nique_” in war-time is huge fun. They thoroughly enjoy their
impromptu meal in the back bedroom. The remains of food are left
scattered about the uncarpeted floors; some of it is trodden carelessly
under the soldiers’ feet.
Everything is tossed about as green hay in the harvest field. The very
sheets are torn from the beds and lie in little white ghostly heaps on
the dark-stained boards. The Brandenburgers come out into the street
where a row of stalwart bayoneting Cuirassiers are keeping order. My
nice blond giant has a huge cigar between his teeth, the Commandant’s
cigar, so has my swashbuckling bully.
They both lunch at the inn and fall to as if they had had nothing to
eat for the last ten months. I am made to translate and can scarcely
speak for anger. I suspect them of every crime.
_Saturday._—The blond giant comes in at all hours. Everyone in the
village likes him now in spite of his behaviour at the Gendarmerie.
He seems gentle, mild-eyed and very courteous. We have been used
to different treatment. He arranges everything so nicely, too. For
instance, he begs us all not to put our noses out of the houses after
twilight, under any pretext. “I can’t bear to think of your being
frightened; my sentries might make a mistake,” he says, smiling
pleasantly. The poor literal peasants don’t see that this is an
euphuism for shooting us on sight. Orders, no doubt.
_Sunday._—I get up early and go to Mass with Mlle Irma, having first
obtained permission from the soldiers. We walk along the sides of the
road, under the shadow of the trees, a wise precaution these days.
Osterre chapel is packed to the doors. I have a curious feeling that
those paint and plaster saints high up on their little pedestals are
alive. St. Antoine’s nose looks longer and more pinched than ever, and
he is gazing down as though ashamed to be of so little use to us in our
hour of need. St. Christopher is mild, so is St. Joseph; the Madonna
seems to smile at us with a modest kind of shrinking sympathy across
pots of flaming geraniums.
Osterre chapel is packed. The sheep-and-goats division of the sexes
appears to obtain in the Ardennes. The women’s side is over-crowded.
We could hang out “standing room only” and be merely truthful. The
men’s scarcely less so. All the women are as scrupulously neat in
their Sunday silk blouses and flower-trimmed hats as though they had
never heard of such a thing as war. One or two of the black-bonneted
old peasants are making their rosaries damp with tears. I can see the
beads, so brightly reflected against the polished wooden seats, shaking
a little. At the end of the service, a box like a newly opened sardine
tin, at the end of a long pole, is thrust before me by a tiny acolyte.
Then we rise and go home comforted. We have shifted the burden of our
troubles to other—wiser shoulders.