One of the Uhlans is quite communicative to-day. He shows us how the
patrols are worked. It is very interesting, but far too red-tapey. “In
twenty minutes,” he says, “I can summon a hundred and twenty Uhlans
to my aid.” To get them, however, he has to write on his cross-barred
paper his name, position, date, hour, regiment and extra details. This
human document he places in an envelope which also has to be addressed
and endorsed with date, hour, name, etc. Business-like but slightly
superfluous when the enemy’s patrols are almost on you. I pity the
Uhlan deputed to take the message.
The Cuirassier is in a soft mood this morning. He comforts Madame Job
with the assurance that no great battle can take place in the Ardennes,
where the wooded hills and valleys are ill-suited to such a scheme. He
ridicules our idea of hiding in the woods as being a fatal plan for
escaping the Germans. “You would be found and dragged out in a moment,”
is his reassuring statement. Later he turns to me.
“You do not fear the Germans, Fräulein?”
All the Uhlans ask me that. They seem so amazed that we do not scuttle
like rabbits at their approach.
“No, I am not afraid,” I answer.
“But you are in more danger here than my brother who is a prisoner in
Russia,” he persists.
I translate this to the family of Job, who all tearfully implore me, as
they have done a hundred times in the last week, to disguise myself as
a peasant and pretend to be one of them....
It seems a skulking thing for a Britisher to do. I can’t face it.
“You see, Fräulein, there are many spies. They have shot women as well
as men before Liège. There is short shrift for spies in war-time. You
are alone too. So much the more suspicious.”
“I must take my chance.”
“Stay in your room then.”
Stay in my room, indeed, when ten, twenty times a day my help is sought
in smoothing over difficulties, interpreting orders for the enemy or
the peasants. A likely plan!
A Cuirassier speaks of himself and the family he never expects to see
again.
“My five brothers are all serving in the army,” he says, “the sixth
is a prisoner in Russia. My two sisters’ husbands are soldiers too. My
father an engineer, aged sixty-five and in weak health, has also been
compelled to come forward and serve his country. My mother was like
that when we came away,” he passes the back of his hand across his eyes.
I begin to pity the German women nearly as much as I pity the Belgian
peasants. But then the former have suffered no atrocities—as yet.