September 8, 1914.
I had gone to bed early on Friday night, and had passed an uneasy night.
It was before four when I got up and opened my shutters. It was a
lovely day. Perhaps I have told you that the weather all last week was
simply perfect.
I went downstairs to get coffee for the picket, but when I got out to
the gate there was no picket there. There was the barricade, but the
road was empty. I ran up the road to Amelie's. She told me that they
had marched away about an hour before. A bicyclist had evidently
brought an order. As no one spoke English, no one understood what had
really happened. Pere had been to Couilly--they had all left there.
So far as any one could discover there was not an English soldier, or
any kind of a soldier, left anywhere in the commune.
This was Saturday morning, September 5, and one of the loveliest days I
ever saw. The air was clear. The sun was shining.
The birds were singing. But otherwise it was very still. I walked out
on the lawn. Little lines of white smoke were rising from a few
chimneys at Joncheroy and Voisins. The towns on the plain, from
Monthyon and Penchard on the horizon to Mareuil in the valley, stood out
clear and distinct. But after three days of activity, three days with
the soldiers about, it seemed, for the first time since I came here,
lonely; and for the first time I realized that I was actually cut off
from the outside world. All the bridges in front of me were gone, and
the big bridge behind me. No communication possibly with the north, and
none with the south except by road over the hill to Lagny. Esbly
evacuated, Couilly evacuated, Quincy evacuated. All the shops closed.
No government, no post-office, and absolutely no knowledge of what had
happened since Wednesday. I had a horrible sense of isolation.
Luckily for me, part of the morning was killed by what might be called
an incident or a disaster or a farce--just as you look at it. First of
all, right after breakfast I had the proof that I was right about the
Germans. Evidently well informed of the movements of the English, they
rode boldly into the open. Luckily they seemed disinclined to do any
mischief. Perhaps the place looked too humble to be bothered with.
They simply asked--one of them spoke French, and perhaps they all
did--where they were, and were told, "Huiry, commune of Quincy." They
looked it up on their maps, nodded, and asked if the bridges on the
Marne had been destroyed, to which I replied that I did not know,--I had
not been down to the river. Half a truth and half a lie, but goodness
knows that it was hard enough to have to be polite. They thanked me
civilly enough and rode down the hill, as they could not pass the
barricade unless they had wished to give an exhibition of "high school."
Wherever they had been they had not suffered. Their horses were fine
animals, and both horses and men were well groomed and in prime
condition.
The other event was distressing, but about that I held my tongue.
Just after the Germans were here, I went down the road to call on my new
French friends at the foot of the hill, to hear how they had passed the
night, and incidentally to discover if there were any soldiers about.
Just in the front of their house I found an English bicycle scout,
leaning on his wheel and trying to make himself understood in a
one-sided monosyllabic dialogue, with the two girls standing in their
window.
I asked him who he was. He showed his papers. They were all right--an
Irishman--Ulster--Royal Innisfall Fusiliers--thirteen years in the
service.
I asked him if there were any English soldiers left here. He said there
was still a bicycle corps of scouts at the foot of the hill, at Couilly.
I thought that funny, as Pere had said the town was absolutely deserted.
Still, I saw no reason to doubt his word, so when he asked me if I could
give him his breakfast, I brought him back to the house, set the table
in the arbor, and gave him his coffee and eggs. When he had finished,
he showed no inclination to go--said he would rest a bit. As Amelie was
in the house, I left him and went back to make the call my encounter
with him had interrupted. When I returned an hour later, I found him
fast asleep on the bench in the arbor, with the sun shining right on his
head. His wheel, with his kit and gun on it was leaning up against the
house. It was nearly noon by this time, and hot, and I was afraid he
would get a sunstroke; so I waked him and told him that if it was a rest
he needed,--and he was free to take it,--he could go into the room at
the head of the stairs, where he would find a couch and lie down
comfortably. He had sleepily obeyed, and must have just about got to
sleep again, when it occurred to me that it was hardly prudent to leave
an English bicycle with a khaki-covered kit and a gun on it right on the
terrace in plain sight of the road up which the Germans had ridden so
short a time before. So I went to the foot of the stairs, called him,
and explained that I did not care to touch the wheel on account of the
gun, so he had better come down and put it away, which he did. I don't
know whether it was my saying "Germans" to him that explained it, but
his sleepiness seemed suddenly to have disappeared, so he asked for the
chance to wash and shave; and half an hour later he came down all
slicked up and spruce, with a very visible intention of paying court to
the lady of the house. Irish, you see,--white hairs no obstacle. I
could not help laughing. "Hoity-toity," I said to myself, "I am getting
all kinds of impressions of the military."
While I was, with amusement, putting up fences, the gardener next door
came down the hill in great excitement to tell me that the Germans were
on the road above, and were riding down across Pere's farm into a piece
of land called "la terre blanche," where Pere had recently been digging
out great rocks, making it an ideal place to hide. He knew that there
was an English scout in my house and thought I ought to know. I suppose
he expected the boy in khaki to grab his gun and capture them all. I
thanked him and sent him away. I must say my Irishman did not seem a
bit interested in the Germans. His belt and pistol lay on the salon
table, where he put them when he came downstairs. He made himself
comfortable in an easy chair, and continued to give me another dose of
his blarney. I suppose I was getting needlessly nervous. It was really
none of my business what he was doing here. Still he was a bit too sans
gene.
Finally he began to ask questions. "Was I afraid?" I was not. "Did I
live alone?" I did. As soon as I had said it, I thought it was stupid
of me, especially as he at once said,--"If you are, yer know, I'll come
back here to sleep to-night. I'm perfectly free to come and go as I
like,--don't have to report until I 'm ready."
I thought it wise to remind him right here that if his corps was at the
foot of the hill, it was wise for him to let his commanding officer know
that the Germans, for whom two regiments had been hunting for three
days, had come out of hiding. I fancy if I had not taken that tack he'd
have settled for the day.
"Put that thing on," I said, pointing to his pistol; "get your wheel out
of the barn, and I'll take a look up the road and see that it's clear.
I don't care to see you attacked under my eyes."
I knew that there was not the slightest danger of that, but it sounded
businesslike. I am afraid he found it so, because he said at once,
"Could you give me a drink before I go?"
"Water?" I said.
"No, not that."
I was going to say "no" when it occurred to me that Amelie had told me
that she had put a bottle of cider in the buffet, and--well, he was
Irish, and I wanted to get rid of him. So I said he could have a glass
of cider, and I got the bottle, and a small, deep champagne glass. He
uncorked the bottle, filled a brimming glass, recorked the bottle, drank
it off, and thanked me more earnestly than cider would have seemed to
warrant. While he got his wheel out I went through the form of making
sure the road was free. There was no one in sight. So I sent him away
with directions for reaching Couilly without going over the part of the
hill where the Uhlans had hidden, and drew a sigh of relief when he was
off. Hardly fifteen minutes later some one came running up from Voisins
to tell me that just round the corner he had slipped off his wheel,
almost unconscious,--evidently drunk. I was amazed. He had been
absolutely all right when he left me. As no one understood a word he
tried to say, there was nothing to do but go and rescue him. But by the
time I got to where he had fallen off his wheel, he was gone,--some one
had taken him away,--and it was not until later that I knew the truth
of the matter, but that must keep until I get to the way of the
discovery.
All this excitement kept me from listening too much to the cannon, which
had been booming ever since nine o'clock. Amelie had been busy running
between her house and mine, but she has, among other big qualities, the
blessed habit of taking no notice. I wish it were contagious. She went
about her work as if nothing were hanging over us. I walked about the
house doing little things aimlessly. I don't believe Amelie shirked a
thing. It seemed to me absurd to care whether the dusting were done or
not, whether or not the writing-table was in order, or the pictures
straight on the wall.
As near as I can remember, it was a little after one o'clock when the
cannonading suddenly became much heavier, and I stepped out into the
orchard, from which there is a wide view of the plain. I gave one look;
then I heard myself say, "Amelie,"--as if she could help,--and I
retreated. Amelie rushed by me. I heard her say, "Mon Dieu." I waited,
but she did not come back. After a bit I pulled myself together, went
out again, and followed down to the hedge where she was standing,
looking off to the plain.
The battle had advanced right over the crest of the hill. The sun was
shining brilliantly on silent Mareuil and Chauconin, but Monthyon and
Penchard were enveloped in smoke. From the eastern and western
extremities of the plain we could see the artillery fire, but owing to
the smoke hanging over the crest of the hill on the horizon, it was
impossible to get an idea of the positions of the armies. In the west
it seemed to be somewhere near Claye, and in the east it was in the
direction of Barcy. I tried to remember what the English soldiers had
said,--that the Germans were, if possible, to be pushed east, in which
case the artillery at the west must be either the French of English.
The hard thing to bear was, that it was all conjecture.
So often, when I first took this place on the hill, I had looked off at
the plain and thought, "What a battlefield!" forgetting how often the
Seine et Marne had been that from the days when the kings lived at
Chelles down to the days when it saw the worst of the invasion of 1870.
But when I thought that, I had visions very different from what I was
seeing. I had imagined long lines of marching soldiers, detachments of
flying cavalry, like the war pictures at Versailles and Fontainebleau.
Now I was actually seeing a battle, and it was nothing like that. There
was only noise, belching smoke, and long drifts of white clouds
concealing the hill.
By the middle of the afternoon Monthyon came slowly out of the smoke.
That seemed to mean that the heaviest firing was over the hill and not
on it,--or did it mean that the battle was receding? If it did, then the
Allies were retreating. There was no way to discover the truth. And
all this time the cannon thundered in the southeast, in the direction of
Coulommiers, on the route into Paris by Ivry.
Naturally I could not but remember that we were only seeing the action
on the extreme west of a battle-line which probably extended hundreds of
miles. I had been told that Joffre had made a frontier of the Marne.
But alas, the Meuse had been made a frontier-but the Germans had crossed
it, and advanced to here in little less than a fortnight. If that--why
not here? It was not encouraging.
A dozen times during the afternoon I went into the study and tried to
read. Little groups of old men, women, and children were in the road,
mounted on the barricade which the English had left. I could hear the
murmur of their voices. In vain I tried to stay indoors. The thing was
stronger than I, and in spite of myself, I would go out on the lawn and,
field-glass in hand, watch the smoke. To my imagination every shot
meant awful slaughter, and between me and the terrible thing stretched a
beautiful country, as calm in the sunshine as if horrors were not. In
the field below me the wheat was being cut. I remembered vividly
afterward that a white horse was drawing the reaper, and women and
children were stacking and gleaning. Now and then the horse would stop,
and a woman, with her red handkerchief on her head, would stand, shading
her eyes a moment, and look off. Then the white horse would turn and go
plodding on. The grain had to be got in if the Germans were coming, and
these fields were to be trampled as they were in 1870. Talk about the
duality of the mind--it is sextuple. I would not dare tell you all that
went through mine that long afternoon.
It was just about six o'clock when the first bomb that we could really
see came over the hill. The sun was setting. For two hours we saw them
rise, descend, explode. Then a little smoke would rise from one hamlet,
then from another; then a tiny flame--hardly more than a spark--would be
visible; and by dark the whole plain was on fire, lighting up Mareuil in
the foreground, silent and untouched. There were long lines of
grain-stacks and mills stretching along the plain. One by one they took
fire, until, by ten o'clock, they stood like a procession of huge
torches across my beloved panorama.
It was midnight when I looked off for the last time. The wind had
changed. The fires were still burning. The smoke was drifting toward
us--and oh! the odor of it! I hope you will never know what it is like.
I was just going to close up when Amelie came to the door to see if I
was all right. My mind was in a sort of riot. It was the suspense--the
not knowing the result, or what the next day might bring. You know, I
am sure, that physical fear is not one of my characteristics. Fear of
Life, dread of Fate, I often have, but not the other. Yet somehow, when
I saw Amelie standing there, I felt that I needed the sense of something
living near me. So I said, "Amelie, do you want to do me a great
service?"
She said she 'd like to try.
"Well, then," I replied, "don't you want to sleep here to-night?"
With her pretty smile, she pulled her nightdress from under her arm:
that was what she had come for. So I made her go to bed in the big bed
in the guest-chamber, and leave the door wide open; and do you know, she
was fast asleep in five minutes, and she snored, and I smiled to hear
her, and thought it the most comforting sound I had ever heard.
As for me, I did not sleep a moment. I could not forget the poor
fellows lying dead out there in the starlight--and it was such a
beautiful night.