The Crime
at Vanderlynden’s
‘Oh, my, I don’t want to die,
I want to go home!’
_Song of Kitchener’s Army._
THE SPANISH FARM was
awarded the Hawthornden Prize
for 1924
THE CRIME
AT VANDERLYNDEN’S
_By_
R. H. MOTTRAM
_Author of_ THE SPANISH FARM
_and_
SIXTY-FOUR, NINETY-FOUR!
LONDON
CHATTO AND WINDUS
1926
Printed in Great Britain
All rights reserved
THE CRIME
AT VANDERLYNDEN’S
*
High up in the pale Flemish sky aeroplanes were wheeling and darting
like bright-coloured insects, catching from one moment to another the
glint of sun on metallic body or translucent wing. To any pilot or
observer who had opportunity or gift for mere speculation, the sight
that lay spread out below might have appeared wonderful. From far away
on the seaboard with its coming and going of ships, there led rail,
road, and wire, and by these three came material, human material, and
human thought, up to that point just behind the battle-line where
in dumps, camps (dumps of men) and Head-quarters (dumps of brains)
they eddied a little, before streaming forward again, more slowly
and covertly, by night, or below ground, up to the battle itself.
There they were lost in that gap in life--that barren lane where the
Irresistible Force dashing against the Immovable Post ground such a
fine powder, that of material, very little, of men, very few, and of
thought, nothing came splashing back.
But pilots and observers were too busy, adding to the Black Carnival,
or saving their own skins from those puffs of Death that kept following
them up and down the sky, to take any such a remote view; and even
had they been interested in it, they could not have lifted the roof
off the Mairie of the village--almost town--of Haagedoorne, and have
seen, sitting in the Mayor’s parlour, a man of middle size and middle
class, a phenomenon in that place, that had been shocked in its
village dignity so many times in those few months. For first it had
been turned from one of those haunts of Peace, of small slow-moving
officialdom, into the “Q.” office of Divisional Head-quarters. It had
become inhabited by two or three English Staff Officers, their maps
and papers, their orderlies and clerks, policemen and servants; and
now, last of all, there was added to them this quiet, absorbed young
man--whose face and hair, figure and clothes had all those half-tones
of moderate appropriateness of men who work indoors and do not expect
too much. A young man who had neither red tabs nor long boots about
him--and who seemed to have so much to do.
The old walls stared. The Mairie of Haagedoorne, half wine-shop, half
beadle’s office, had seen soldiers in its four hundred years, had been
built for Spanish ones, and had seen them replaced by French and Dutch,
English and Hessians, in bright uniforms and with a certain soldierly
idleness and noise. This fellow had none of it. Sat there with his
nose well down, applying himself to maps and papers, occasionally
speaking deferentially to Colonel Birchin, who, a proper soldier, his
left breast bright with medals, his face blank and slightly bored with
breeding, would nod or shake his head. This was all part of the fact
that this War was not as other wars. It was too wide and deep, as if
the foundations of life had come adrift on some subterranean sea, and
the whole fabric were swaying; it had none of the decent intervals, and
proper limits, allowing men to shut up for the winter and to carry on
their trade all the time.
The dun-coloured person attached to Divisional Staff, whose name was
Stephen Doughty Dormer, indulged in none of these reflections. He just
got on with it. He was deep in his job when an exclamation from his
temporary Chief made him look up. The Colonel was sitting back in his
chair (iron-bottomed, officers, for the use of), his beautiful legs in
their faultless casings stretched out beneath his army table. He was
holding at arm’s-length a blue printed form, filled up in pen and ink.
Dormer knew it well. It was the official form on which Belgian or
French civilians were instructed to make their claim for damages caused
by the troops billeted on them.
The Colonel’s mouth hung open, his eyeglass had dropped down.
“You speak this--er--language?”
“Yessah!” (with a prayer it might not be Portuguese). “What language,
sir?”
“This is--er--French.”
Yes, he could speak French, and hastened to look. Dormer was a clerk in
a bank. Like so many of that species, he had had a grandmother with
views as to the improvement of his position in the world, and she had
insisted that he should learn the French language. Why she desired this
was never discovered, unless it was that she considered it a genteel
accomplishment, for she dated from the days when society was composed
of two sorts of people, gentle and simple. She belonged to the former
category and was in no danger of allowing any of her descendants to
lapse. As she paid for the extra tuition involved, her arguments were
irrefutable, and the boy intended for no more romantic a career than
is afforded by a branch office in a market town, had, in 1900, a fair
knowledge of the tongue of Voltaire and Hugo.
He hardly reflected upon the matter again until, in the midst of a
European War, he found that that War was being conducted in a country
where French was the chief language, and that familiar-sounding words
and phrases assailed his ear on every side. This was of considerable
service to him, enabled him to add to his own and his brother officers’
comfort; but he never boasted of it, having a profound uncertainty,
after years of clerkdom, about anything so foreign and out of office
hours. The legend of his peculiar ability persisted, however; and when
after more than a year of incredible fatigues and nastiness, his neat
methods and perfect amenity to orders were rewarded by the unofficial
job of helping in the A. and Q. office of a division, he found his
legend there before him. It was therefore with a sigh, and a mental
ejaculation equivalent to “Spare me these useless laurels,” that he got
up and went over to his Chief’s table, to be confronted by the sentence:
“_Esquinté une vierge chez moi!_”
“What’s _Esquinté_? It’s not in Cassells’ Dictionary!”
“I should say--knocked asquint, sir! Spoiled, ruined; they often say
it, if the troops go into the crops.”
“Well, how does it read, then? Knock asquint; no, that won’t do;
ruined, you say. Ruined a Virgin in my house. This sounds like a nice
business, with the French in their present mood!”
Dormer simply could not believe it and asked:
“May I see the claim?”
“Certainly. Come here. Stop me wherever I go wrong.”
He knew more French than Dormer gave him credit for. He read the blue
form, printed question and pen-and-ink reply to the end. It went like
this:
Q. When was the damage committed?
A. Last Thursday.
Q. What troops were responsible? Give the number and name of the
English detachment.
A. A soldier of the 469 Trench Mortar Battery (T.M.B.).
Q. Were you present and did you see the damage done?
A. No, but my daughter knows all about it.
Q. In what conditions was the damage done?
A. He broke the window (_vitrage_). She called out to him, but he
replied with oaths.
Q. Can you prove responsibility (_a_) by witness?
A. My daughter.
Q. (_b_) By _procès-verbal_.
A. They insulted the Mayor when he came to do it!
Q. (_c_) By admission of the culprits.
A. Not necessary. It is visible.
Q. Did you complain to the officer commanding troops?
A. He would not listen.
And so on.
Deposed and sealed at the Mairie of Hondebecq, Nord, as the claim for
compensation of Mr. Vanderlynden, cultivator, 64 years old, by us
Swingadow, Achille, Mayor.
“What do you say to that?” asked the Chief.
Dormer had a good deal to say, but kept it down. “I can’t believe it,
sir. I know the billet. I remember Miss Vanderlynden. She’s as strong
as a man and much more determined than most. It’s a mistake of some
sort!”
“Pretty circumstantial mistake, isn’t it? Look at this covering letter
received with it.”
He held out a memorandum headed: “Grand Quartier General,” in French,
to the effect that one desired it might be given appropriate attention.
And another from a department of English General Head-quarters with
“Passed to you, please.”
“The French have had their knife into us for some time. This’ll be
a nice case for them to take up. We must make an arrest at once.
Sergeant!”
That Sergeant was a famous London Architect. He came to the door of the
ante-room in which he worked.
“In what Corps Area is Hondebecq?”
The Sergeant spotted it in a moment, on the big map pinned up on the
wall.
“Very well, wire them to take this up, and make an arrest.”
“There is just one point I should like to put, sir!”
As Dormer said it, he felt it to be “cheek.” His Chief turned upon him
the eyeglass of a regular officer who found it rather difficult to
imagine how a junior temporary officer could put a point. But Dormer
had seen two Courts-Martial, and the thought of some poor brute hauled
out of a trench, and marched about for no better purpose than that,
kept him firm.
“If an arrest is made, you will have to go on with the proceedings.”
“Naturally.”
“Then you will need a statement from the victim. If we had that first,
we should know the truth!”
“Well, you’d better go and get it, as you know the people. You can see
Corps and insist on an arrest. But, most important of all, try what a
little money can do. He says a thousand francs. Well, you must see what
he will come down to.”
Outside Divisional Head-quarters, Dormer turned to the right, to go to
his billet, but a military policeman, stepping out from the shelter of
the buildings, saluted.
“They’re shelling that way, sir!”
It gave Dormer a queer familiar feeling in the pit of the stomach.
Shelling, the daily routine of that War. But being a very punctilious
temporary officer, and taking his almost non-existent position in
Divisional Staff very seriously, he pulled himself together.
“Oh, well, they’d have hit me long ago, if they could!” He passed on,
followed by a smile. He said those things because he felt them to be
good for the morale of the troops. Sure enough, he had not gone many
yards before the air was rent by a familiar tearing sound, followed by
the usual bump and roar. It was well in front of him, and to the left,
and he went on reassured. A few yards farther on, close to the side
street where he was billeted over a pork-butcher’s shop, he noticed
people coming out of their houses and shops to stare, while one
elderly woman, rounder than any artist would dare to portray, asked him:
“O Monsieur, is the bombard finished?” in the Anglo-Flemish which years
of billeting were beginning to teach the inhabitants of the town. But
the centre of excitement was farther on, where the little street of
houses petered out between small, highly cultivated fields. Here the
first shell had fallen right upon one of those limbers that were to be
found being driven up some obscure street at any hour of the day or
night. Two dazed drivers had succeeded in cutting loose and quieting
the mules. A horse lay dead in the gutter. Against the bank leaned the
Corporal, his face out of sight, as if in the midst of a hearty laugh.
It needed only a glance, however, to see that there was no head upon
the shoulders. It was just one of those daily disagreeable scenes which
to Dormer had been so utterly strange all his life, and so familiar
for the last year. Dormer made no fuss, but took charge. He knew well
enough that the drivers would stand and look at each other. He sent
one of them for a burial party from the nearest Field Ambulance,
saw that the other tied up the mules and made a bundle of the dead
man’s effects--paybook, knife, money, letters--the pitiful little
handkerchief-ful of all that remains for a soldier’s loved ones--while
he himself pushed his way into the orderly room of the nearest
formation, that showed any signs of telephone wires. He had not many
yards to go, for the camps lay along each side of that Flemish lane, as
close as houses in a street.
He was soon inside an Armstrong hut, with the field telephone at
his disposal, and while waiting to be given the orderly room of the
Brigade Transport to which the casualty belonged, he happened to close
his eyes. The effect was so striking that he immediately opened them
again. There, on the underside of his eyelids, was the headless body he
had just left. Curiously enough, it did not lie against the bank, as
he had seen it, but seemed to swim towards him, arms above his head,
gesticulating. Once his eyes were open again, of course it disappeared.
About him was nothing more wonderful than the interior of an Armstrong
hut Orderly Room, an army table, an army chair. Some one’s bed and bath
shoved in a corner. Outside, trampled mud, mule-lines, cinder tracks,
Holland elms, flat, stodgy Flanders all desecrated with War. He got
the number he wanted, told the Brigade to fetch their broken limber,
gave his rank and job, and put up the telephone. The impression he had
had was so strong, however, that walking back along the cinder path,
he closed his eyes again. Yes, it was still there, quite plain, the
details of the khaki uniform all correct and clear cut, spurred boots
and bandolier, but no head, and the arms raised aloft, exhorting or
threatening.
If he went on like this he would have to see a Medical Officer, and
they would send him down to the Base, and he would find his job filled
up, and have to go elsewhere and start all over fresh, trying to do
something that was not desperately boring or wholly useless. He had
been doing too much, going up at night for “stunts,” and working in Q.
office all day. He would have to slack off a bit.
By the time he got back to Divisional H.Q. the car stood ready. The
feelings of one who, having been hauled out of the infantry, had then
to return to the Forward Areas, were curiously mixed. Of course no one
wanted to be shelled or bombed, to live where the comforts of life were
unpurchasable, and the ordinary means of locomotion out of use. And
yet--and yet--there was a curious feeling of going home. That great
rowdy wood and canvas and corrugated iron town, miles deep and nearly a
hundred miles long, was where one belonged. That atmosphere of obvious
jokes and equally obvious death, disinfectant, tobacco, mules, and wood
smoke had become one’s life, one’s right and natural environment.
His companion on this joyless ride was Major Stevenage, the A.P.M. of
the Division, an ex-cavalry officer of the regular army, in appearance
and mentality a darker and grimmer edition of Colonel Birchin.
Dormer showed him the Vanderlynden dossier as they bowled along. He
surveyed it with the weariness of a professional to whom an amateur
exhibits a “masterpiece.”
“Colonel Birchin thinks it’s rape, does he?”
“Yes!”
“He’s wrong, of course. Q. office always are! What do you think it is
yourself?”
“A nasty snag. What happened doesn’t matter. You and I could settle
it for forty francs. But the French have got hold of it. It’s become
official.”
“What do you suggest?” Major Stevenage put in his monocle.
“We must go and see the Maire, and get it withdrawn. Let’s see.
Hondebecq? It’s the Communal Secretary Blanquart we must see. Shrewd
fellow and all on our side. These schoolmasters hate the peasants.”
Dormer knew the area well. Hondebecq was the typical village of
French Flanders. That is to say, it was a cluster of cottages in
which _rentiers_--peasants who had scraped a few savings out of the
surrounding fields--lived on about forty pounds a year English; in
its centre, a paved _grand’ place_ held a few modest shops, a huge
high-shouldered church, carefully refaced with red brick, and a big,
rambling “Estaminet de la Mairie,” next to the village school.
It was here that they found Blanquart, Communal Secretary,
schoolmaster, land surveyor, poor man’s lawyer, Heaven only knows
what other functions he used to combine. He was the only man in the
Commune handy with pen and paper, and this fact must have substantially
added to his income. But, like all his kind, he could not forget that
he came from Dunkirk or Lille; he had moments when his loneliness got
the better of his pride and he would complain bitterly of the “sacred
peasants.”
They found him seated in his little front parlour--he only functioned
in the official room at the Estaminet on State occasions--busy with
those innumerable forms by which the food of France was rationed, her
Army conscripted, her prices kept in check and her civil administration
facilitated. In the corner between the window and the clock sat an old
peasant who said only, “_Bonjour._”
Blanquart greeted them effusively, as who should say: “We others, we
are men of the world.” He made polite inquiries about the officers’
health and the weather and the War, leading up to the introduction:
“Allow me to present you to Mister our Mayor! And now what can I do for
you?”
Major Stevenage, a little lost in the mixed stream of good French and
bad English, left it to Dormer.
“It is with reference to the claim of Vanderlynden! Can one arrange it?”
Blanquart had only time to put in: “Everything arranges itself,” before
the Mayor cut him short.
“You have some nice ideas, you others. Arrange it, I believe you. You
will arrange it with our Deputy.”
Blanquart put in: “Mister the Mayor was insulted by the troops. We
wrote to our Deputy!”
Major Stevenage fidgeted. He had found it most difficult to go through
this sort of thing, day after day, for years. He had been trained to
deal with Asiatics. He turned on Blanquart:
“Why didn’t you write to me first?” but the Mayor cut in again. His
general outlook on life was about that of an English agricultural
labourer plus the dignity of Beadledom. This latter had been injured,
and the man, who seldom spoke a dozen sentences a day, now was voluble.
He understood more English than one gave him credit for.
“Why write to you, officer, you are all of the same colour!” (By this
time not a German attack could have stopped him.) “My Garde Champêtre
comes to tell me that there is a crime of violence at Vanderlynden’s.
They demand that I go to make _procès-verbal_. I put on my tricolour
sash. I take my official notebook. I arrive. I demand the officer. _Il
s’est foutu de moi!_ (Untranslatable.) He says he has orders to march
to the trenches. His troops hold me in derision. They sing laughable
songs of me in my official capacity----”
“It is very well, Monsieur the Maire,” Dormer broke in. “We go to make
an arrestation. Can you indicate the culpable?”
“But I believe you, I can indicate him,” cried the old man.
Dormer waited breathlessly for some fatal name or number which would
drag a poor wretch through the slow exasperation of Court-Martial
proceedings.
“It was a small brown man!”
“That does not lead us very far!” said Dormer icily.
“Wait!” The old man raised his voice. “Achille!” The door opened, and
Achille Quaghebeur, the Garde Champêtre, in attendance on the Maire,
stepped in and closed it behind him. He had, in his dark green and
sulphur-coloured uniform, with his assumption of importance, the air
of a comic soldier out of “Madame Angot.” “Produce the corroborative
article!”
Achille found in his tail pocket surely the oldest and most faded of
leather pocket-books. From this in turn he produced a piece of A.S.C.
sacking, on which the word OATS was plainly printed in black.
“Voila!” said the Maire.
“Totally useless!” growled the Major, turning red.
This made the Maire furious; he grasped the intonation and expression
if not the words.
“You others, you are enough to send one to sleep standing up. One
produces the _corroborative_ pieces and you treat them as useless.” And
there followed a tirade during which Dormer drew the Major outside,
with profuse _Bonjours!_ He thought that Blanquart was trying to sign
to him that he wanted to say something to him privately. But the
Major was upset, his dignity was hurt. A soldier by profession, he
had reduced the settlement of claims to a fine art. He was said to
have settled three thousand between the time he was made A.P.M. to the
division on the Aisne to the day of his death at Bailleul. He told the
chauffeur to drive to Vanderlynden’s. The man seemed to know the way,
and had probably been to the place many times. As the car jolted and
ground over the cobbles into the yard, Dormer said:
“I shall ask for the daughter, Madeleine.”
“Just so!”
“I don’t believe----”
“Nor do I,” said the Major stoutly.
Neither of them could pronounce the word “rape.”
They got out, knocked at the door and knocked again. The place
seemed not so much empty and deserted as enveloped in one of those
encompassing noises that only sort themselves out on investigation.
Too deep for a separator, too near for an aeroplane, Dormer diagnosed
it: “They’ve got the Government thrasher in the back pasture, next the
rye!” (He had a good memory and could tell pretty well how most of the
people distributed crops and work.)
They recrossed the bridge of the moat and skirting the latter
entered the back pasture. There against the gate that gave on to the
arable “plain,” as it was called in those parts, was the Government
thrasher, the women labourers, and right on the top of the stack, old
Vanderlynden.
Dormer shouted! Vanderlynden paid not the slightest heed. Perhaps he
was deaf, no doubt the thrasher buzzed loud enough; but above all he
was one of those old peasants whose only reply to this unheard-of War
in which all had been plunged was to work harder and more continuously,
and to show less and less consciousness of what went on round about
them. There he stood, black against that shy and tender blue of Flemish
sky, the motions of his body mechanical, his face between collarless
shirt and high-crowned, peaked cap, expressionless. Finally, Dormer
took one of the short stout girls that were employed in raking the
straw away from the travelling band, and shook her roughly by the arm.
She was, of course, a refugee Belgian. No one else would work like
that, not even a Chinese woman. Like a clockwork figure, she began to
speak in “English”:
“No bon offizer billet all full you go Mairie!” without stopping for
one moment her raking.
Dormer held her forearm rigid, and stopped her.
“_Saagte patron heer t’kom!_”
That reached her consciousness. Throwing down her implement, she put
both hands to her mouth and began shouting “Hoi!” at old Vanderlynden,
and might have gone on shouting indefinitely if Dormer had not gone
round to the French Army mechanic who drove the machine and given him
an English canteen cigarette. That would have stopped an offensive. It
soon stopped the thrasher and Vanderlynden looked down at his visitors.
“Good day, Patron!” called Dormer; “can we see Mademoiselle?”
The old man got down with unexpected agility. “Good day, my officer,
what is it that there is?”
Dormer held out the blue claim form. At the sight of it, there came
into Vanderlynden’s face the look that a mule gives its feed, when,
expecting and even enjoying bits of wood, leather, and nails, it comes
across a piece of tin: not so much protest as long and malevolent
calculation of the unknown. As a matter of fact he could not read
more of it than his signature. He muttered once or twice, “_myn
reclamorsche_,” but got no further.
“Can we see Mademoiselle?” repeated Dormer.
The old man stared at him with the incredulity of a villager who finds
a stranger ignorant of village news: “But, my officer, my young lady is
gone!”
At that moment the French mechanic, who had lighted his cigarette and
now only wanted to be done with the job, put his lever over, and set
the thrasher buzzing again. As if spell-bound, old Vanderlynden gave
one leap and regained his place on the stack. The Belgians fell to
at their several jobs. The corn flew, the wheels whizzed, the grain
rattled in the hopper, the straw swished in long swathes beneath the
rakes. Dormer and the Major were left standing, idle and forgotten,
with their War, while the real business of the farm went steadily
forward, only a little hastened because the thrasher had to be at
Watten next day.
They walked back to the car, in a black frame of mind. Neither spoke,
from war habit of not mentioning the omnipresent perversity of things.
But Madeleine Vanderlynden’s departure from the farm, coming after the
wording of the claim, was ominous indeed.
Travelling by motor has many disadvantages, but against all these it
has one crowning advantage: to those who are weary and overspent,
it provides more immediately and completely than any other physical
sensation the feeling of escape. What magic lies behind that word! To
get into the car and go, no matter whither, and to leave at any rate
one incomprehensible muddle behind him: that was the illusion while the
chauffeur was starting.
No farther off than the gate of the pasture, swaying at slowest speed
over the unevenness of the entry, the car stopped. A motor-cyclist
slithered up beside it, saluted the A.P.M. and produced one of those
scores of messages that fluttered about just beyond the end of the
field telephone. Dormer might have passed unknown, but the A.P.M. was
unmistakable. Having handed over the flimsy envelope, the pocket Hermes
threw his leg over the saddle of the gibbering machine that carried
him, and was away up the lane and out on to the _pavé_ road, out of
sight before the A.P.M. could get out the words “No answer.”
The A.P.M. sat frowning at the pink Army message form. The chauffeur
sat frowning, one hand on the wheel, his foot keeping the engine going
by light continual touches on the accelerator, his face screwed round
to catch the order to proceed. The Sergeant of police sat perfectly
still and impassive, looking before him, the sunlight glinting on the
tiny fair hairs of his clipped moustache. The cyclist had gone, the
chauffeur wanted to go, and, after a moment, quietly slipped into
first gear and let the car gently gather way. The policeman did not
have to want. He had simply to sit still and his morning would pass
as his other mornings did, in passively guarding law and order in the
organization of the British Armies in France and Flanders. It was not
until the car was already moving at more than walking pace that the
A.P.M. spoke, and Dormer got the queerest sensation from the sequence
of such small events. For the first time it seemed to him that the
A.P.M. was not in possession of the initiative. It was these private
soldiers, waiting, coming and going, that forced him to give an order.
The impression lasted only a moment, but it was disturbing. Decidedly,
Dormer felt, he was not well, having such notions. Then he had no more
time to think, for the A.P.M. was holding out the pink wire for him to
read. He read:
“Corps requires signed statement of withdrawn claim.” The illusion of
escape was gone. The botheration was not behind, it was ahead of them.
“No use saying she isn’t there. We shall have to concoct something.” He
was obviously waiting for Dormer to suggest.
“I think, sir, we might go back to Blanquart, and find out the girl’s
whereabouts. The Maire will be gone by now!”
“Thank goodness. To Hondebecq Mairie.” The car flew from second to top
speed.
Back at the Grand’ Place of the village, the car stopped, the chauffeur
folded his hands, at the order to wait, the A.P.M. and Dormer entered
the Estaminet. It was empty, as Dormer had foreseen. The Maire and his
Secretary were not people who had time to waste, and were both gone
about their jobs--the Maire to his farm, the clerk to his school, the
classes of which were plainly audible through the wall, grinding out
some lesson by heart, in unison, like some gigantic gramophone with a
perpetual spring. It was the hour at which all France prepares for its
substantial meal.
Outside, the Grand’ Place was empty, save for the sunshine, not here an
enemy, as farther south, but the kindly friend that visits the coasts
of the North Sea all too rarely, wasting its pale and tepid gold on
the worn stones, on the green-shuttered, biscuit-coloured façades of
substantial two-storied houses, with steep roofs and tall chimneys,
behind which protruded the summits of ancient Holland elms. For a long
while there was no movement, save the flutter of a straw caught in the
cobbles. The A.P.M. fidgeted. There was no sound but the classes next
door, the wind in the street, the faint tremor of the window-panes, in
response to some distant inaudible shelling.
“You wouldn’t think there was a war going on within twenty miles?”
“Twenty kilometres, sir!”
“Is it possible? Are we going to wait all day, Dormer?”
“No, sir, only a moment; the people of the house can’t be far off, but
the door behind the bar is locked. I don’t want to go into the school
myself, Blanquart won’t like it, and one wants to keep on the right
side of him.”
“Why won’t he like it? He’ll have to.”
“The children get out of hand, sir, at the sight of a uniform. I’ve
noticed it when I’ve been billeting.”
“Do they?”
“Yes, sir; it’s all fun to them still.”
“Is it?” The A.P.M. grimaced and began reading the signs over the
little shops: “_Charcuterie_--what’s that?”
“Baked-meat shop. Pork-butcher’s we should call it, sir!”
“_Quincaillerie._”
“Hardware!”
“Who’s this, coming across the square?”
“Belgian refugee, sir!”
Dormer had no doubt about it. The heavy round-shouldered figure, the
mouth hanging loosely open, the bundle carried under the arm, the
clumsy boots, the clothes apparently suspended round the waist by a
string. Her story was written all over her: turned out of some Walloon
or Flemish farm or town, at the approach of the Germans--tramping along
a road with a retreating army all mixed up with a nation on the move,
she had lost home, parents, occupation, all in a few hours, and was
glad to get board and bed and any odd job that she could do.
“Is this the sort of person we have to interview?”
“Oh no, sir. Different type!”
The woman showed some mild interest at the sight of the car, and
exchanged banter in pidgin English with the chauffeur and policeman.
The invitation from the latter “promenade,” and the smiling, flattered
refusal “promenade no bon!” could be heard. Then she entered and stood
before them.
“_Bonjour_, offizer, what you want?”
“Will you kindly tell the Maire’s Secretary one waits to see him.”
“You want billets?” in English. “Billets na poo!”
“No!” Dormer was always piqued when his French was disregarded or
misunderstood. “We want M. Blanquart!”
“All right.” She returned with him in a moment.
“M. Blanquart, we have been to the farm and seen Vanderlynden. He’s
very busy, and we didn’t get much out of him, but we gather his
daughter has left home. Do you know her address?”
A look of incredulity visited the face of the schoolmaster. He pointed
across the square. “There. She has taken the ‘Lion of Flanders.’ She
gives lunch to officers!”
When this was conveyed to the A.P.M. he was considerably annoyed. “Why
couldn’t that old fool Vander what’s-his-name say so?”
Blanquart understood perfectly, not only the words, but the feeling.
“Ah, Monsieur, there you have the peasant. I have lived among them all
my life. I am not of them, I am from St. Omer, but I know them well.
They are like that. They are thrashing. They are sowing. They cannot
attend to anything else, even if it be their own business. You and I
shall be treated like the weather, something to be used or avoided....”
But the A.P.M. had stepped out of the Estaminet de la Mairie. Dormer
lingered, just sufficiently to say:
“We are much obliged, M. Blanquart, we will attend to the affair.” For
he had been brought up to behave as a little gentleman and knew that
politeness cost nothing and that he might require the Secretary of the
Mairie again.
Outside, the chauffeur was busy underneath the car, the policeman stood
beside it, legs apart, hands clasped behind his back, face expressing
absolutely nothing. In a few strides Dormer caught up to the A.P.M.
“This lady speaks good English, sir. No doubt you will conduct the
inquiry yourself?”
“I hope so, if we really have found the person at last. We’ve wasted
nearly the whole morning.”
Dormer was relieved; his mind, always inclined to run a little in
advance, had already arrived at the point at which some one would have
to ask this woman:
“Are you the victim of this shocking crime?” He didn’t want to do it,
for he felt that it was the A.P.M.’s business.
The two officers entered the Café-Restaurant of the “Lion of Flanders.”
The whole of the ground floor, a long, low room looking out into the
Grand’ Place, had been cleared and set with little tables. Round the
desk from which the Patronne supervised the business, one or two
officers from neighbouring billets were drinking mixed vermouth. The
air was redolent of preparation, and it was only because they remained
standing that the A.P.M. and Dormer attracted attention. Finally,
a rough middle-aged woman in an apron asked what she could do for
these gentlemen. Feeling the subject to be increasingly delicate,
Dormer ordered two mixed vermouths and then asked if they might speak
to Mademoiselle Vanderlynden upon business. The drinks were served,
and behind them came the person required. No sooner had she come and
inquired what was wanted, than Dormer wished to goodness she had not.
He realized more than ever how difficult it would be to say to such a
person, “Are you the victim of the unmentionable crime?” But there she
stood, quite good looking, imperturbable, a little impatient perhaps,
obviously wanting to know without delay why she had been sent for in
the middle of a busy morning. This was comforting in a sense; it showed
there was something wrong with the whole atrocious story. On the other
hand it was awkward, one had to go on and explain. So he pulled out the
blue printed claim: the A.P.M. in spite of what had been said, left it
to him.
“It is about this claim of your father’s.”
She took it, scrutinized it a moment, and handed it back:
“Ah, that.” She was not helpful.
“You are of course familiar with the whole story?”
“Yes, I remember it all.”
The A.P.M. was listening attentively, impressed by her glib, adequate
English, and even more so by her personality. Dormer, on the other
hand, was occupied with his own feelings.
“There is some mistake, is there not?”
“No, there is no mistake.”
“The Major has come to see the--er--the damage!”
“I shall be pleased to go with you to the farm, after lunch.”
“That’s a jolly good idea,” the A.P.M. broke in. “We’ll have lunch
here, and go and look at the damage afterwards.”
“Very good. Will you take a chair, sir?” and she was gone.
“You see, it wasn’t what you thought,” the A.P.M. went on, finishing
his drink at a gulp, and making Dormer feel, for the twentieth time,
what a grossly unfair War it was.
The lunch was long, far more of the Flemish midday dinner than the
French déjeuner. The A.P.M. took the lot, commented freely, enjoyed
himself immensely. There were _hors d’œuvres_ (sardines, beans in
oil, some sort of sausage, a kind of horse-radish, “Wonder where the
devil she gets ’em?” said the A.P.M.), soup (ordinary, but enlivened
by parsley and bits or toast fried in fat and something, third cousin
to a piece of garlic, “scrumptious”), veal and spinach (very good, but
“no fish, pity!”). In a moment, Mademoiselle Vanderlynden stood over
them. “I am sorry, we have only sardines, they will not let the fish
come by train!” Chicken and salad (“Excellent. Ah, they understand oil,
the French”), little biscuits, coffee that dripped through a strainer
into glasses, rum (“That’s English, I bet!”), and Dormer, shy in such
matters, and without social code, began wondering whether he could
offer to pay.
He had learned during bitter years, one rule: “Always treat an A.P.M.
if you can!” This had not been his preoccupation during the meal.
He had been haunted by a tag of verse--from the “Ingoldsby Legends”
which he certainly hadn’t read for twenty years. He was not one
to read “poetry.” But neither had he a regular soldier’s trained
indifference. He knew where it was going to end, this quest on which
they were engaged. Some poor brute who had volunteered to come to
this blessed country to fight the Germans, would be hauled out of
some ghastly apology for a “rest” camp--if he were lucky--more likely
out of some dug-out or cellar, or even from Hospital--placed under
arrest--frightened dumb, if by any chance he had any speech in him, and
finally tried by a court to whom he was a “Tommy” (the sort of person
who enlisted in the regular army because he was out of work), and
sentenced to some penalty. And here was the A.P.M. eating and drinking
with gusto. It reminded Dormer of:
Send for Trefooze, and Lieutenant Tregooze,
Send for Sir Carnaby Jenks of the Blues.
How much must I fork out, my trump,
For the whole first floor of the Magpie and Stump?
the rhyme of the drunken swells who couldn’t even keep awake to see a
man hanged. It was, however, the ideal state of mind for making war.
The A.P.M. was saying to Mademoiselle Vanderlynden: “The bill please,
Madam,” and when he got it, “By Gad, did we drink all that? Well, I
don’t grudge it.”
So he was going to pay. The room was emptying now, there were no
troops in the village, and most of the officers lunching there (with
shy propitiatory looks toward the A.P.M.) had some way to ride to get
back to their units. Here was Mademoiselle ready to go and show them
the damage. She wore no hat, but her clothes were good of their kind
and she carried the day’s takings clasped to her breast, in a solid
little leather dolly-bag, far from new. The A.P.M. allowed her the rare
privilege of a lift in the car. They went back over the same road that
the two officers had followed in the morning. Once more Dormer had
his queer feelings. There was something wrong about this. Three times
over the same road and nothing done. As they turned into the by-road,
Mademoiselle Vanderlynden held up her hand. “Stop here, please!”
They were at the corner of the big pasture before the house. There was
an ordinary hedge, like an English one, thickened at this angle into a
tiny copse, with a dozen young poplars. Mademoiselle soon found a gap
in the fence and led them through, remarking, “The troops made this
short cut!”
They found themselves in Vanderlynden’s pasture, like hundreds of
others over a hundred miles of country. There were no troops in it at
the moment, but it had the air of being continuously occupied. In long
regular lines the grass had been trampled away. Posts and wire, and a
great bank of manure marked the site of horse-lines. Nearer the house,
tents had been set up from time to time, and circles, dotted with peg
and post holes, appeared half obliterated. At the corners of the field
were latrines, and at one spot the cookers had blackened everything.
“Billets for the troops!” reflected Dormer, to whom the idea of lodging
in the open had never ceased to be a thoroughly bad joke. “Stables for
horses, stables for men!” Obviously enough the machinery of War had
been here in full swing. Dormer (a man of no imagination) could almost
see before him the khaki-clad figures, the sullen mules, the primitive
vehicles filing into the place, tarrying ever so briefly and filing out
again to be destroyed. But Mademoiselle Vanderlynden was occupied with
the matter in hand, and led to the other side of the coppice, where
there had been built by some previous generation of pious Vanderlyndens
a little shrine. It was perhaps eight feet high, six feet thick, and
had its glazed recess towards the main road. But the glazing was all
broken, the altar torn down, and all those small wax or plaster figures
or flowers, vases, and other objects of the trade in “votive offerings”
and _objets de piété_ which a Vanderlynden would revere so much more
because he bought them at a _fournitures ecclésiastiques_, rather than
made them with his own hands, were missing. Army wire had been used to
fasten up the gaping aperture.
“There you are,” said Mademoiselle. She added, as if there might be
some doubt as to ownership: “You can see that it is ours. Here is our
name, not our proprietors!”
Sure enough, on a flat plaster panel was a partially effaced
inscription: “Marie Bienheureuse--prie pour--de Benoit Vanderl--femme
Marthe--Juin 187----”
The A.P.M. lighted a cigar, and surveyed the ruins. He was feeling
extremely well, and was able to take a detached unofficial attitude.
“Oh, so that’s the Virgin, is it?”
“No. That is the place for the image. The image is broken, as I told
you, and we removed the pieces.”
“Very good. Then I understand you claim a thousand francs for the
damage to the brick-work and the--er--altar furniture which was--ah,
broken--it seems too much, you know!”
“Perhaps, sir, you are not well ack-vainted with the price of building
materials!” (Ah, thought Dormer, she speaks pretty good English, but
that word did her.)
“Oh, I think so, I’m a bit of a farmer myself, you know. I have a place
in Hampshire, where I breed cattle.”
Mademoiselle’s voice seemed to rise and harden:
“Yes, sir; but if you are rich, that is not a reason that you should
deny justice to us, who are poor. I do not know if I can get this
altar repaired, and even if I can there is also the question of the
_effraction_----”
“The what?”
“Legal damages for breaking in--trespass, sir,” put in Dormer, alarmed
by the use of French. He could see she was getting annoyed, and wished
the A.P.M., the lunch, the claim, the farm and the War, all the blessed
caboodle, were with the devil.
“Oh, I see.”
“Et puis, and then there are _dédommagements_--what would you say if I
were to knock down your Mother’s tomb?”
“What’s that. Oh, I can’t say, I’m sure. I really can’t go into all
this. Captain Dormer, there is obviously no arrest to be made. It is
purely a claim for compensation. I will leave it to you. I must be
getting back. _Comprenez_, Mademoiselle, this officer will hear what
you have to say and will settle the whole matter with you. Famous lunch
you gave us. Au revoir. If you care for a game of bridge this evening,
Dormer, come round to B Mess!”
Dormer took out his field notebook and conducted the inquiry partly in
English, partly in French.
They sat in the cavernous old tiled kitchen, half-filled with the stove
and its stupefying heat, half with the table, scrubbed until the grain
of the wood stood out in ribs.
Mademoiselle Vanderlynden had dismissed the A.P.M. from her mind
with the remark that he was a droll type, and gave Dormer her full
attention, rather as if he had been a dull boy in the lowest class, and
she his teacher.
“When did this occur?”
“Why, in April. It was wet, or he would not have done it!”
“Did you see it done?”
“Yes. I even tried to stop it!”
“Where were you?”
“Why naturally I was at that hole in the fence. One cannot always hire
a boy to keep the cattle from straying.”
“Well?”
“Well, then the troops came in. They were not pretty to see!”
“What troops were they?”
She turned over a dirty dog-eared memorandum book.
“469 Trench Mortar Battery.”
“So they had had a bad time?”
“One gathered that. They were very few, and some of their material was
missing. At the last came this man with his two mules. One was sick,
one was wounded. Most of the men, as soon as they had put up their
animals, fell down and slept, but this one kept walking about. It was
almost dark and it was beginning to rain. I asked him what he wanted.”
“What did he say?”
“‘To Hell with the Pope!’”
The shibboleth sounded so queer on her lips that Dormer glanced at her
face. It was blank. She had merely memorized the words in case they
might be of use to her. She went on:
“He did not like the images on the altar! Then he began to break the
glass, and pull down the woodwork. One saw what he wanted. It was
shelter for his mules.”
“You cautioned him that he was doing wrong?”
“I believe you. I even held him by the arm.”
“That was wrong of you, Mademoiselle. You should have informed his
officer.”
“Oh, you must understand that his officer was asleep on the kitchen
floor. But so asleep. He lay where he had fallen, he had not let go
the mug from which he drank his whisky. So much--(she held up four
graphic fingers)--ah, but whisky you know!”
“I see. You were unable to report to the officer in charge of the
party. But still, you should never touch a soldier. He might do you an
injury, and then, at a court of inquiry, it would be said against you
that you laid hands on him.”
“Oh, you understand, one is not afraid, one has seen so many soldiers
these years. And as for the court of inquiry, we have had four here,
about various matters. They all ended in nothing.”
“Well, well, you endeavoured to prevent the damage, and being unable
to report to the proper authority, you made your claim for damage in
due course. But when the officer woke up, you informed him that you had
done so?”
“Why necessarily, since we had the Maire to make a _procès-verbal_!”
“So I hear, from the Maire himself. But apparently the Maire did not do
so, for the procès-verbal is not included with the other papers.”
“No, the Maire was prevented by the troops. (A grim smile broke for
a moment the calculated business indifference on the face of one who
excluded emotion, because it was a bad way of obtaining money.) Oh,
la-la! There was a _contretemps_!”
“Do you mind telling me what occurred?” She seemed to regret that brief
smile, and apologized to herself.
“All the same, it was shameful. Our Maire is no better than any other,
but he is our Maire. One ought to respect those in power, ought not
one, sir?”
“In what way were the troops lacking in respect?”
“They sang. They sang--_casse-tête_--enough to split your head, all the
way to the village!”
“Oh, they were on the move, were they?”
“It was pitiable, I assure you, sir, it was shameful to see. _Ces
pauvres êtres._ They hardly had any sleep. Only a few hours. Then
it seems the Bosche made a counter-attack, and paff! here comes a
motor-cyclist, and they were obliged to wake up and fall in. Some of
them could only stand up with difficulty. But at length, they were
ready; then the Maire came. We had sent for him _d’urgence_, when we
saw the troops were going, because you can’t make a _procès-verbal_ of
a person who is no longer there!”
“No, quite right. But why did they sing?”
“Ah, _ça tombait d’accord_. Just as the officer gives the word, the
Maire arrives. We had informed him it was a crime of violence, and
he had taken it very serious. He is old, our Maire. He had put on
his--_écharpe_.”
“What is that?”
She made a vivid gesture with her hands.
“It goes so! It is tricolour. It is the Maire’s official dress!”
“Ah, his official scarf!”
“That is it. Also, he had mounted his hat!”
“How did he do that?”
“The usual way. But it was a long hat, a hat of _grande tenue_--like a
pot of confiture.”
“Mademoiselle, this will not do. I cannot settle this matter here
and now, I must pass on all the papers to my superior officer, who
will place them with the proper authority. They will ask ‘Is there no
_procès-verbal_?’ Am I to say: ‘The Maire went to make one. He put on
his hat and the troops began to sing.’ It sounds like a joke.”
“Ah, you others, you are always the ones to laugh. It was just exactly
as I have said. They sang!”
“But you told me just now that they were tired out!”
“Quite true!”
“It will never sound so. What did they sing?”
“Old Hindenburg has bought a hat!”
In a moment Dormer was convinced. The words painted, framed and hung
the picture for him. He had just been beginning to hope that the whole
thing would break down from sheer improbability. He now saw it stamped
and certified with eternal truth. There was no need for her to add:
“They were not gay, you understand, they were _exalté_!”
“Excited!”
“Ah! Excited, like one is after no sleep and no food and then something
very strange. They were excited. They called the Maire ‘Maréchal
Hindenburg,’ and ‘Bosche,’ and ‘Spy.’ Those are words that ought not to
be used between allies!”
“No, Mademoiselle, they ought not.”
But for a moment, the hardness left her face, she became almost
impersonal.
“It was curious. They sang that--_sur une aire de psaume_, to a church
tune.”
“Yes, yes!” agreed Dormer. Out of the depth of his experience as a
churchwarden welled up the strains of Whitfield, No. 671, and out of
the depths of his experiences as a platoon commander came a sigh: “They
will do it.”