"No, no," he said, "I'm not joking. I may not say it very well, but I
am quite serious. We all want to say to you that if it is war that
makes you and the women you live amongst so different from English
women, then all we can say is that the sooner England is invaded and
knows what it means to have a fighting army on her soil, and see her
fields devastated and her homes destroyed, the better it will be for the
race. You take my word for it, they have no notion of what war is like;
and there ain't no English woman of your class could have, or would
have, done for us what you have done this morning. Why, in England the
common soldier is the dirt under the feet of women like you."
I had to laugh, as I told him to wait and see how they treated them when
war was there; that they probably had not done the thing simply because
they never had had the chance.
"Well," he answered, "they'll have to change mightily. Why, our own
women would have been uncomfortable and ashamed to see a lot of dirty
men stripping and washing down like we have done. You haven't looked as
if you minded it a bit, or thought of anything but getting us cleaned up
as quick and comfortable as possible."
I started to say that I felt terribly flattered that I had played the
role so well, but I knew he would not understand. Besides, I was
wondering if it were true. I never knew the English except as
individuals, never as a race. So I only laughed, picked up my towels,
and went home to rest.
Not long before noon a bicycle scout came over with a message from
Captain Edwards, and I sent by him a basket of eggs, a cold chicken, and
a bottle of wine as a contribution to the breakfast at the officers'
mess; and by the time I had eaten my breakfast, the picket had been
changed, and I saw no more of those boys.
During the afternoon the booming off at the east became more distinct.
It surely was cannon. I went out to the gate where the corporal of the
guard was standing, and asked him, "Do I hear cannon?" "Sure," he
replied. "Do you know where it is?" I asked. He said he hadn't an
idea--about twenty-five or thirty miles away. And on he marched, up and
down the road, perfectly indifferent to it.
When Amelie came to help get tea at the gate, she said that a man from
Voisins, who had started with the crowd that left here Wednesday, had
returned. He had brought back the news that the sight on the road was
simply horrible. The refugies had got so blocked in their hurry that
they could move in neither direction; cattle and horses were so tired
that they fell by the way; it would take a general to disentangle them.
My! wasn't I glad that I had not been tempted to get into that mess!
Just after the boys had finished their tea, Captain Edwards came down
the road, swinging my empty basket on his arm, to say "Thanks" for his
breakfast. He looked at the table at the gate.
"So the men have been having tea--lucky men--and bottled water! What
extravagance!"
"Come in and have some, too," I said.
"Love to," he answered, and in he came.
While I was making the tea he walked about the house, looked at the
pictures, examined the books. Just as the table was ready there was a
tremendous explosion. He went to the door, looked off, and remarked, as
if it were the most natural thing in the world, "Another division
across. That should be the last."
"Are all the bridges down?" I asked.
"All, I think, except the big railroad bridge behind you--Chalifert.
That will not go until the last minute."
I wanted to ask, "When will it be the 'last minute'--and what does the
'last minute' mean?"--but where was the good? So we went into the
dining-room. As he threw his hat on to a chair and sat down with a
sigh, he said, "You see before you a very humiliated man. About half an
hour ago eight of the Uhlans we are looking for rode right into the
street below you, in Voisins. We saw them, but they got away. It is
absolutely our own stupidity."
"Well," I explained to him, "I fancy I can tell you where they are
hiding. I told Captain Simpson so last night." And I explained to him
that horses had been heard in the woods at the foot of the hill since
Tuesday; that there was a cart road, rough and winding, running in
toward Conde for over two miles; that it was absolutely screened by
trees, had plenty of water, and not a house in it,--a shelter for a
regiment of cavalry. And I had the impertinence to suggest that if the
picket had been extended to the road below it would have been impossible
for the Germans to have got into Voisins.
"Not enough of us," he replied. "We are guarding a wide territory, and
cannot put our pickets out of sight of one another." Then he explained
that, as far as he knew from his aeroplane men, the detachment had
broken up since it was first discovered on this side of the Marne. It
was reported that there were only about twenty-four in this vicinity;
that they were believed to be without ammunition; and then he dropped
the subject, and I did not bother him with questions that were bristling
in my mind.
He told me how sad it was to see the ruin of the beautiful country
through which they had passed, and what a mistake it had been from his
point of view not to have foreseen the methods of Germans and drummed
out all the towns through which the armies had passed. He told me one
or two touching and interesting stories. One was of the day before a
battle, I think it was Saint-Quentin. The officers had been invited to
dine at a pretty chateau near which they had bivouacked. The French
family could not do too much for them, and the daughters of the house
waited on the table. Almost before the meal was finished the alerte
sounded, and the battle was on them. When they retreated by the house
where they had been so prettily entertained such a few hours before,
there was not one stone standing on another, and what became of the
family he had no idea.
The other that I remember was of the way the Germans passed the river at
Saint-Quentin and forced the battle at La Fere on them. The bridge was
mined, and the captain was standing beside the engineer waiting to give
the order to touch off the mine. It was a nasty night--a Sunday (only
last Sunday, think of that!)--and the rain was coming down in torrents.
Just before the Germans reached the bridge he ordered it blown up. The
engineer touched the button. The fuse did not act. He was in despair,
but the captain said to him, "Brace up, my lad--give her another
chance." The second effort failed like the first. Then, before any one
could stop him, the engineer made a dash for the end of the bridge,
drawing his revolver as he ran, and fired six shots into the mine,
knowing that, if he succeeded, he would go up with the bridge. No good,
and he was literally dragged off the spot weeping with rage at his
failure--and the Germans came across.
All the time we had been talking I had heard the cannonade in the
distance--now at the north and now in the east. This seemed a proper
moment, inspired by the fact that he was talking war, of his own
initiative, to put a question or two, so I risked it.
"That cannonading seems much nearer than it did this morning," I
ventured.
"Possibly," he replied.
"What does that mean?" I persisted.
"Sorry I can't tell you. We men know absolutely nothing. Only three
men in this war know anything of its plans,--Kitchener, Joffre, and
French. The rest of us obey orders, and know only what we see. Not even
a brigade commander is any wiser. Once in a while the colonel makes a
remark, but he is never illuminating."
"How much risk am I running by remaining here?"