"Yes," I replied.
"Well, this is the situation as near as I can work it out. We infer
from the work we were given to do--destroying bridges, railroads,
telegraphic communications--that an effort is to be made here to stop
the march on Paris; in fact, that the Germans are not to be allowed to
cross the Marne at Meaux, and march on the city by the main road from
Rheims to the capital. The communications are all cut. That does not
mean that it will be impossible for them to pass; they've got clever
engineers. It means that we have impeded them and may stop them. I
don't know. Just now your risk is nothing. It will be nothing unless
we are ordered to hold this hill, which is the line of march from Meaux
to Paris. We have had no such order yet. But if the Germans succeed in
taking Meaux and attempt to put their bridges across the Marne, our
artillery, behind you there on the top of the hill, must open fire on
them over your head. In that case the Germans will surely reply by
bombarding this hill." And he drank his tea without looking to see how I
took it.
I remember that I was standing opposite him, and I involuntarily leaned
against the wall behind me, but suddenly thought, "Be careful. You'll
break the glass in the picture of Whistler's Mother, and you'll be
sorry." It brought me up standing, and he didn't notice. Isn't the mind
a queer thing?
He finished his tea, and rose to go. As he picked up his cap he showed
me a hole right through his sleeve--in one side, out the other-and a
similar one in his puttee, where the ball had been turned aside by the
leather lacing of his boot. He laughed as he said, "Odd how near a chap
comes to going out, and yet lives to drink tea with you. Well, good-bye
and good luck if I don't see you again."
And off he marched, and I went into the library and sat down and sat
very still.
It was not more than half an hour after Captain Edwards left that the
corporal came in to ask me if I had a window in the roof. I told him
that there was, and he asked if he might go up. I led the way, picking
up my glasses as I went. He explained, as we climbed the two flights of
stairs, that the aeroplane had reported a part of the Germans they were
hunting "not a thousand feet from this house." I opened the skylight.
He scanned in every direction. I knew he would not see anything, and he
did not. But he seemed to like the view, could command the roads that
his posse was guarding, so he sat on the window ledge and talked. The
common soldier is far fonder of talking than his officer and apparently
he knows more. If he doesn't, he thinks he does. So he explained to me
the situation as the "men saw it." I remembered what Captain Edwards had
told me, but I listened all the same. He told me that the Germans were
advancing in two columns about ten miles apart, flanked in the west by a
French division pushing them east, and led by the English drawing them
toward the Marne. "You know," he said, "that we are the sacrificed
corps, and we have known it from the first--went into the campaign
knowing it. We have been fighting a force ten times superior in
numbers, and retreating, doing rear-guard action, whether we were really
outfought or not--to draw the Germans where Joffre wants them. I reckon
we've got them there. It is great strategy-Kitchener's, you know."
Whether any of the corporal's ideas had any relation to facts I shall
never know until history tells me, but I can assure you that, as I
followed the corporal downstairs, I looked about my house--and, well, I
don't deny it, it seemed to me a doomed thing, and I was sorry for it.
However, as I let him out into the road again, I pounded into myself
lots of things like "It hasn't happened yet"; "Sufficient unto the day";
and, "What isn't to be, won't be"; and found I was quite calm. Luckily
I did not have much time to myself, for I had hardly sat down quietly
when there was another tap at the door and I opened to find an officer
of the bicycle corps standing there.
"Captain Edwards's compliments," he said, "and will you be so kind as to
explain to me exactly where you think the Uhlans are hidden?"
I told him that if he would come down the road a little way with me I
would show him.
"Wait a moment," he said, holding the door. "You are not afraid?"
I told him that I was not.
"My orders are not to expose you uselessly. Wait there a minute."
He stepped back into the garden, gave a quick look overhead,--I don't
know what for, unless for a Taube. Then he said, "Now, you will please
come out into the road and keep close to the bank at the left, in the
shadow. I shall walk at the extreme right. As soon as I get where I
can see the roads ahead, at the foot of the hill, I shall ask you to
stop, and please stop at once. I don't want you to be seen from the
road below, in case any one is there. Do you understand ?"
I said I did. So we went into the road and walked silently down the
hill. Just before we got to the turn, he motioned me to stop and stood
with his map in hand while I explained that he was to cross the road
that led into Voisins, take the cart track down the hill past the
washhouse on his left, and turn into the wood road on that side. At each
indication he said, "I have it." When I had explained, he simply said,
"Rough road?"