GERMANY
Over the side of the next mountain all Hans Andersen was stretched
before them--tracts of _little_ country, little wooden houses with
pointed roofs, little hills covered with squares of different coloured
woods, and a blue river at the bottom of the valley, white with geese
upon its banks. They held their open mouths insultedly in the air as the
motor passed. The narrow road became like marble, and the car hissed
like a glass ball rolled on a stone step. On every little hill stood a
castle made of brown chocolate, very small, but complete with turrets.
Young horses with fat stomachs and arched necks bolted sideways off the
road in fear, followed by gaily painted lattice-work carts, and plunged
far into the grassland at the side. Old women with coloured hoods swore
at them, and pulled the reins. Many pointed hills were grey with
vine-sticks, and on the crest of each of these stood a small chapel as
if to bless the wine. The countryside was wet and fresh--white, hardly
yellow--with the winter sun; moss by the roadside still dripped from the
night, and small bare orchard trees stood in brilliant grass.
"Look! How the grass grows in Germany!"
"Ah, it doesn't grow like that in the valley of the Meuse--"
Every cottage in every village was different; many wore hats instead of
roofs, wooden things like steeples, with deep eaves and carved fringes,
in which were shadowy windows like old eyes. Some were pink and some
were yellow.
Soon they left the woods and came out upon an open plateau surrounded by
wavy hills with castles on them. In the middle of the plateau was a
Zeppelin shed which looked like the work of bigger men than the crawling
peasants in the roads. One side of the shed was open, and the strange
predatory bird within, insensible to the peering eye of an enemy, seemed
lost in thought in this green valley. The camp of huts beside it was
deserted, and there seemed to exist no hand to close the house door.
They rose again on to a hillside, and on every horizon shone a far blue
forest faint like sea or cloud.
Nearer Tréves the villages were filled with Americans--Americans mending
the already perfect roads, and playing with the children.
"This is a topsy-turvy country, as it would be in Hans Andersen,"
thought Fanny. "I thought the Germans had to mend the broken roads
in France!"
They stayed that night in the Porta-Nigra hotel, which had been turned
into an Allied hostel. The mess downstairs was chiefly filled with
American officers, though a few Frenchmen sat together in one corner.
The food was American--corn cakes, syrup, and white, flaky bread.
"Well, what bread! It's like cake!"
"Oh, the Americans eat well!"
"I don't agree with you. They put money into their food, and they eat a
lot of it, but they can't cook.
"Isn't it astonishing what they eat! It's astonishing what all the
armies eat compared with our soldiers."
"Now this cake-bread! I should soon sicken of it. But _they_ will eat
sweets and such things all day long."
"Well, I told you they are children!"
"The Americans here seem different. They behave better than those in
France."
"These are very _chics types_. Pershing is here. This is the
Headquarters Staff."
"Yes, one can see they are different."
"It appears they get on very well with the Germans."
"Hsh--not so loud."
After dinner they strolled out into the town. The Bearskin was very
anxious to get a "genuine iron cross."
He was offered iron crosses worked on matchboxes, on cigarette lighters,
on ladies' chains.
"But are they genuine?"
He did not know quite what he meant.
"I don't suppose them to be taken from a dead man's neck, but are they
genuine?"
In the streets the Germans sold iron crosses from job lots on barrows
for ten francs each.
"But I will get one cheaper!" said the Bearskin, and clambered up the
steps into shop after shop. He found an iron cross on a chain for seven
francs. No one knew what the mark was worth, and the three men, with the
German salesman, bent over the counter adding and subtracting on paper.
"How can a goblin countryside breed people who sell iron crosses at ten
francs each?" wondered Fanny.
There was a notice on the other side of the street, "Y.M.C.A., two doors
down the street on your left," and the thin man stood in the door of the
shop beside Fanny and pointed to it.
"Couldn't you go there and get me cigars? They will be very cheap. Have
you money with you?"
"I'll try," said Fanny, "I've money. We can settle afterwards," inwardly
resolving to get as many cigarettes as she could to take back for the
men in the garage. She crossed the street, but looked back to find the
thin man creeping after her. She waited for him, irritated.
"Go back. If the American salesman sees you he'll know it's for the
French, and he won't sell."
"Tiens?"
"He knew that quite well," she thought impatiently to herself, "or he
wouldn't have asked me to buy for him."
The thin man turned back to the cover of the shop like an eager little
dog which has jumped too quickly for biscuit and been snubbed.
She went down the street and into the Y.M.C.A.
Instantly she was among three or four hundred men, who stood with their
backs to her, in queues up the long wooden hall. Far ahead on the
improvised counter was a _guichet_ marked "Cigars." She placed herself
at the tail of that queue.
"Move up, lady," said the man in front of her, moving her forward. "Say
here's a lady. Move her up."
Men from the other queues looked round, and one or two whistled slyly
beneath their breath, but her own queue adopted her protectingly, and
moved her up to their head, against the counter.
It was out of the question to get cigars now. She had become a guest,
and to get cigars would imply that she was not buying for herself, but
to supply an unknown man without. And the marks on her uniform showed
that the unknown was French.
"One carton of Camels, please," she said, used to the phraseology.
"Take two if you like," said the salesman. "We've just got a dump in."
She took two long cardboard packets of cigarettes, and put down ten
francs.
"Only marks taken here," said the salesman. "You got to make the change
as you come in."
"Oh, well--I'll--"
"Put it down. Put it here. We don't get a lady in every day."
He gave her the change in marks, which seemed countless.
"I'm sure you've given me too much!"
"Oh no. Marks is goin' just for love in this country. Makes you feel
rich!"
As she emerged from the hall with her two long cartons under her arm she
found the thin man, the Bearskin and Blackberry-Eyes standing like
children on the doorstep.
It was too much--to give her away like that.
Other Americans, coming out, looked at them as a gentleman coming out of
his own house might look at a party of penguins on his doorstep.
Fanny swept past her friends without a glance and walked on up the
street with her head in the air. They turned and came after her
guiltily. When they caught her up in the next street, she said to the
thin man, "I asked you not to come near while I was buying--"
"Have you got cigars, mademoiselle?"
"No, I couldn't. Why did you come like that? Now I can go in no more.
You'd only to wait two minutes."
They looked crestfallen, while she held the cigarettes away from them as
a nurse holds sweets from a naughty child.
"I could only get two packets. I can give you one. I'm sorry, but I
promised to get cigarettes for some people in Metz."
The thin man brightened, and took the big carton of Camels with delight.
"They're good, those!" he said knowingly to the others. "How much were
they, mademoiselle?"
"Five francs twenty the carton."
"Is it possible? And we have to pay...."
By his tone he made it seem a reflection on the Americans. Why should a
country be so rich when his had been devastated, so thinned, so difficult
to live in? Fanny thought of the poor huddled clients who had sat on the
floor of the car during the snowstorm. It had been a bitter journey for
them.
After all--those rich, those pink and happy Americans, leather-coated
down to the humblest private, pockets full of money, and fat meals three
times a day to keep their spirits up--why shouldn't they let him have
their cigarettes?
"You can have this carton, too, if you like," she said, offering it.
"I'll manage to slip in to-morrow morning."
He thanked her, delighted, and they went back to the hotel.
The problem of the kindness of the Americans, and her frequent abuse of
it to benefit the French, puzzled her.
"But, after all, it's very easy to be kind. It's much easier to be kind
if you are American and pink than if you are French and anxious."
Another difference between the two nations struck her.
"The Americans treat me as if I were an amusing child. The French, no
matter how peculiar their advances, always, always as a woman."
Next morning, when she got down to breakfast at eight, she found that
the three Frenchmen had already gone out about their work.
"Perhaps I shall get home to-night, after all," she prayed. She sat in
the hotel and watched the Americans, or wandered about the little town
until eleven. The affair with the cigars was suitably arranged. The hall
was nearly empty when she went in, and the few men who stood about in it
did not disarm her with special kindness. On getting back to the hotel
she found the Bearskin pushing breathlessly and anxiously through the
glass doors.
"Monsieur Raudel has left his cigarettes in his bedroom," he said,
"unlocked up. He is anxious so I have come back."
"Well, tell him that if he--tell him quite as a joke, you know--that if
I can get home--"
(Something in his little blue eye shone sympathetically, and she leant
towards him.) "Well, I'll tell _you_! There is a dance to-night in Metz,
and I am asked. And tell him that I have bought two boxes of cigars
for him!"
The Bearskin, enchanted, promised to do his best.
By half-past twelve the three were back at lunch in the hotel. Over the
coffee Monsieur Raudel looked reflectively at his well-shaped nails.
"Well, mademoiselle, so this is what it is to have a woman chauffeur--"
Fanny looked up nervously, regretting her confidence in the Bearskin.
"Apart from the pleasure of your company with us, we get cheap cigars,
and you get your dance, so every one is pleased."
"Oh!" She was radiant. "But you haven't hurried too much? Are we really
starting back?"
Monsieur Raudel, who was a new man when he wasn't cold, reassured her,
and soon they were all packed in the Renault, and running out of Tréves.