CHAPTER XXVI

THE RETURN FROM BRUSSELS

From Brussels to Ninove, from Ninove to Sottegem, from Sottegem to Ghent, from Ghent to Antwerp; that was how I got back!

At the outskirts of Brussels, on a certain windy corner, I stood, waiting my chance of a vehicle going towards Ghent.

The train-lines were still cut, and the only way of getting out of Brussels was to drive, unless one went on foot.

At the windy corner, accompanied by Jean and his two sisters, I stood, watching a wonderful drama.

There were people creeping in, as well as creeping out, peasants on foot, women and children who had fled in terror and were now returning to their little homes. It seemed to me as if the Germans must purposely have left this corner unwatched, unhindered, probably in the hope of getting more and more to return.

Little carts and big carts clattered up and came to a standstill alongside an old white inn, and Jean bargained and argued on my behalf for a seat.

There was one tiny cart, drawn by a donkey, with five young men in it.

The driver wanted six passengers, and began appealing to me in Flemish to come in.

"I will drive you all the way to Ghent if you like," he said.

"How much?"

"Ten francs."

Suddenly a hand pulled at my sleeve, and a hoarse voice whispered in my ear:

"Non, non, Madam. You mustn't go with them. Don't you know who they are?"

It was a rough-faced little peasant, and his blue eyes were full of distress.

I felt startled and impressed, and wondered if the five young men were murderers.

"They are the Newspaper Sellers!" muttered the blue-eyed peasant under his breath.

If he had said they were madmen his tone could not have been more awestruck.

After a while I found a little cart with two seats facing each other, two hard wooden seats. One bony horse stood in the shafts. But I liked the look of the three Belgian women who were getting in, and one of them had a wee baby. That decided me. I felt that the terrors of the long drive before me would be curiously lightened by that baby's presence. Its very tininess seemed to make things easier. Its little indifferent sleeping face, soft and calm and fragrant among its white wool dainties, seemed to give the lie to dread and terror; seemed to hearten one swiftly and sweetly, seemed to say: "Look at me, I'm only a month old. But I'm not frightened of anything!"

And now I must say good-bye to Jean, and good-bye to his two plump young sisters.

They are the dearest friends I have in the world--or so it seems to me as I bid them good-bye.

"Bonne chance, Madam!" they whisper.

I should like to have kissed Jean, but I kissed the sisters instead, then feeling as if I were being cut in halves, I climbed, lonely and full of sinister dread, into the little cart, and the driver cracked his whip, shouting, "Allons, Fritz!" to his bony horse and off we started, a party of eight all told. The three Belgian women sat opposite me; two middle-aged men were beside me, and the driver and another man were on the front seat.

Hour after hour we drove, hour after hour there was no sun. The land looked flat and melancholy under this grey sky, and we were at our old game now.

"Have you seen the Germans?"

"Yes, yes, the Germans are there," pointing to the right.

And we would turn to the left, tacking like a boat in the storm.

Terrific firing was going on. But the baby, whose name the mother told me was Solange, slept profoundly, the three women chattered like parrots, and the driver shouted incessantly, "Allons, Fritz, allez-Komm!" and Fritz, throwing back his head, plodded bravely on, dragging his heavy load with a superb nonchalance that led him into cantering up the hills, and breaking into gallops when he got on the flat road again. Hour after hour Fritz cantered, and galloped and trotted, dragging eight people along as though they were so many pods.

Ce 10. 12. 14.

MADAME CREED,

Le passage à Londres, je me permets de me rappeler à votre bon souvenir. En effet, rappelez-vous votre retour de Bruxelles, en octobre dernier: dans la carriole se trouvaient 2 messieurs et 3 dames (l'une avec un bébé que vous avez tenu dans les bras) dont 2 institutrices. J'en suis une des deux, Mme. Stoefs. J'ai été à Gand espérant vous revoir, mais vous étiez repartie déjà. Peut être ici à Londres, amais-je ce plaisir. J'y suis encore jusqu'à la fin de cette semaine, donc soyez assez aimable de me dire où et quand nous pourrions nous rencontrer. Voici mon adresse: Mme. Stoefs: Verstegen, 53, Maple Street, W. Au plaisir de vous revoir, je vous présente mes cordiales salutations.

CHARLOTTE STOEFS.

Institutrice à Bruxelles.

One bleak December day in London there came to me this letter, and by it alone I know that Fritz and the baby Solange, and the eight of us are no myth, no figment of my imagination. We really did, all together, drive all day long through the German-infected country, to east, to west, to north, to south, through fields and byways, and strange little villages, over hills and along valleys, with the cannon always booming, the baby always sleeping and old Fritz always going merry and bright.

By noon, we might have known each other a thousand years. I had the baby on my knee, the three men cracked walnuts for us all, and everyone talked at once; strange talk, the strangest in all the world.

"So they killed the priest!"

"She hid for two days in the water-closet."

"She doesn't know what has happened to her five children."

"They were stood in a row and every third one was _fusillé_."

"They found his body in the garden!"

"Il est tout-à-fait ruiné."

Then suddenly one of the ladies, who knew a little English, said with a friendly smile:

"I have liked very much the English novel--how do you call it--something about a lamp. Everyone reads it. It is our favourite English book. It is splendid. We read it in French too."

And every now and then for hours she and I would try guessing the name of that something-about-a-lamp book. But we never got it. It was weeks later when I remembered "The Lamplighter."

At last we crossed the border from Brabant into Flanders, and galloping up a long hill we found ourselves in Ninove. It was in a terrific state of excitement. Here we saw the results of the fighting I had heard at Enghien on the Saturday. The Germans had pillaged and destroyed. Houses lay tumbled on the streets, the peasants stood grouped in terror, the air was full of the smell of burning. At a house where we bought some apples we saw a sitting-room after the Huns had finished it. Every bit of glass and china in the room was smashed, tumblers, wine-glasses, jugs, plates, cups, saucers lay in heaps all over the floor. All the pictures were cut from the frames, all the chairs and tables were broken to bits. The cushions were torn open, the bookshelves toppled forward, the books lay dripping wet on the grey carpet as if buckets of water had been poured over them. Jam tins, sardine tins, rubbish and filth were all over the carpet, and bottles were everywhere. It was a low, degrading sight.