He halted an instant. Then shook his head and skulked away.
Through an oiled paper that had replaced the panes of a shattered window
in a house which no longer had a second story I caught sight of a
flickering light. I boldly knocked on the door.
"_Qui est la?_--" asked a high-pitched, trembling female voice.
"I, Madame H. of Villiers."
"I don't know you--go your way."
"But we are refugees."
"I have nothing left. _Allez-vous-en!_"
That was categorical, to say the least. So on we went, past the charred
ruins of one-time happy homes.
As we rounded a corner our lantern cast a dim glow on to the drawn
shutters of a half-collapsed structure.
"Stop a moment," said Julie; "there's something written on those
blinds."
I approached, and holding the light as close as possible I read the
following sign, chalked in huge white letters:
"Attention. No Loitering. Looters will be shot on the spot!"
That was the last straw, and though it was obvious that the warning was
intended for the troops now miles away, it sent us ahead with uncanny
celerity.
Our advance was short-lived, however, for it soon became evident that
our horses were fagged out. Yet where to go became an agonizing
question, for though we were still within the limits of the village, not
a roof was to be seen. There seemed to be but one thing to do, and so,
halting, I fumbled in the bottom of the cart and brought forth a handful
of dry straw, and my precious bottle of brandy. Thanks to these, a match
and a sheltering wall, a flame managed to blaze up, and from somewhere
in the vicinity Julie procured a bundle of brush and an old broom.
With the heat our spirits rose. The girls dried themselves as best they
could before the welcome fire, and though still awed by our
surroundings, we nibbled a crust of dry bread and some stale cheese.
Then silently Nini and Yvonne crept back into the cart, covered
themselves with hay and a blanket, opened an umbrella above their beads,
and soon were fast asleep. The others begged me to share their bed
beneath the cart, but tormented by the thought of what had become of H.,
racked by the anxiety of what the future held in store, I could not
resign myself to rest, and the first gray streaks of that cool September
dawn found me seated on a stone, staring at the glowing embers of our
watch-fire.
Again the wind shifted in our direction, bringing with it that same
loathsome smell. I shivered and pulled myself together, and after
carefully scrutinizing my road-map, decided that there was just a chance
of reaching Villiers before night, but only if we started at once. This
living in suspense was beginning to tell on my nerves and anything, even
the assurance of dreaded misfortune, would have seemed a relief. After
the state in which we had found Barcy there was little doubt that our
part of the country had been treated the same way. Perhaps it was still
in the Germans' hands; we had no way of knowing to the contrary.
I roused the servants and told them of my intention, and in a few
moments a pot of coffee was boiling on the tripod. In spite of the
early hour I did not hesitate to add a little brandy in each cup, for
after twenty-four hours of continual rain a stimulant was not only
necessary but welcome. I tried to coax the dogs to take some, they
seemed so wet and miserable, but they spurned my offer, and stood
looking at me with most pitiful and mournful eyes.
Presently Tiger disappeared behind the wall, and a second later we heard
a low growl. With childlike temerity Nini jumped up to see what was the
cause of his alarm, and then almost instantly I heard her gasp, "_Un
mort!_"
That brought us to our feet and in a bound I was on the spot just in
time to see her fearlessly approaching the prostrate form of a German
soldier, the upper extremity of whose body was hidden beneath the top of
a tin wash boiler. The child raised the lid, beheld, as we did, a
headless human trunk, and fell into a swoon.
We were well on our road before she came to her senses, and there were
moments when I almost wished she might remain dormant until we had
passed beyond the gruesome plain that stretches between Barcy and
Vareddes--now a historic battlefield.
What a weird and wonderful sight it presented that gloomy September
morning. Behind us Barcy, whose every edifice was decapitated or so
degraded as to look like a gigantic sieve. Around us and on all sides
fields fairly ploughed up by shot and shell, and every fifty yards it
seemed to me rose a freshly covered mound, extending as far as eye could
see. On these new-made graves were piled hundreds of red soldier caps,
and here and there a hastily hewn wooden cross bearing such inscriptions
as these, scrawled in lead pencil on a smooth space whittled by a jack
knife:
_Aux Braves du 248_
When an officer was found and identified, he was buried alone and his
name was carefully written on the cross, but more often we saw graves
marked thus:
-Ici reposent deux offlciers et quarante hommes du 28 ... ieme._
Sometimes the tomb was in the ditch (to save digging) and once we saw
the Parisian _pompiers_ burying some German corpses in the very trench
they had dug and died in.
Overhead tangled electric wires swung dangerously near the road, the
poles shattered or knocked agog, while in the distance the stumps of a
once-majestic row of poplars made the horizon look like a grinning
toothless face.
Time and again we were obliged to leave the road to avoid accident by
passing over unexploded shells, and I shall always recall a gigantic oak
tree which though still standing was cleft in twain by a 77-shell
embedded intact in the yawning trunk; the impact, not the explosion, had
caused the rift.
The farther we advanced the more evident became the signs of recent
conflict. Hay stacks seemed to have been a favorite target as well as
refuge. One we saw was almost completely tunneled through, and the
blood bespattered sides of the opening told that the occupant had been
caught as in a trap. Around these stacks were scattered the remains of
old boots and shoes, scarlet blood-soaked rags, dry beans, bits of soap,
playing cards and songs. Oh, lighthearted sons of France, it can be
truly said that death held no terrors for you, since from Barcy to
Soissons the ground you loved and so valiantly defended was strewn white
with hundreds of thousands of tender ditties and _chansons de route_.
From Vareddes we passed on to Congis, the only living soul we met being
a little old white-haired parish priest, who had set himself the task of
blessing each new-made grave.
"If this rain continues some of them will be so effaced in a fortnight
that we shall never find them. See--this cross is but two bits of
straw, bound together by a shoe string!"
And he held up the fragile ornament for my inspection.
"These are more durable," and he showed another relic made of a bayonet
sheath, crossed on the blade itself!
"And you--Monsieur le Cure--bow is it you are here?"
"Alas--would to God they had taken me in the place of our boys! Seven
of them, Madame, carried off as hostages. I was too old to be of use!"
"And the women?"
The poor little man hung his bead.
"Twere better they had died!"