Part 23

Snatches of honest English, mingled with French, filtered in from the café, where the fire was not quite extinct and where beer was served until 9 o'clock. Before that hour I was fumbling upstairs guided by the patronne, who carried a two-inch stub of candle between her fingers. "This is the way to the cave," she explained, pointing to a doorway under the stairs. "In case of an alarm you have only to rush down there. There will be a light burning at the entrance." Passing through the hallway she indicated the spot where a man had recently been killed. "If he had stayed where he was, at the table where you have just eaten, Madame, he would have been all right, but as he ran to the refuge a bomb exploded outside in the square, burst open the front door, traversed the length of the corridor, passed through the kitchen wall and into the garden beyond. But you can rest assured that nothing will happen tonight, Madame," continued the patronne, who seemed as familiar with the habits of Gothas as a farmer's wife is with those of fowls--"Not in this wind, oh, no!"

After that first night I groped my way alone to bed, the candle stub having come to an end, feeling my way along the pitch dark passageways to the room with the linoleum mat, the room which had not known fire for three years and a half, whose paneless windows were boarded up, the one room in the house which had not lost a ceiling or floor or whose walls were not clipped through with shells. The regular inmates of the hotel slept nightly in the cellar. It saved time and was warmer.

Notwithstanding the reassurances of the patronne I confess to going to bed with half my clothes on. But under the wing of the storm Dunkirk slept tranquilly for three successive nights. Of course, there was always the soft bum-bum of the cannon on the northern horizon, strange tremors shook the bed, and the night was full of weird sounds, the rattling skeletons of dead houses.

BRAVE LITTLE DUNKIRK

Like an arm held up to protect the face, the coast between Calais and Dunkirk bears the brunt of storm from the North Sea. A dark sea, sombre and brooding, girdled by lowering clouds; on the snow-driven plain a few detached towers, etched as though in sepia against the gray sky and rising abruptly above the low line of roof--this is Dunkirk on a Winter's day. A homely little town with a deep fringe of docks and waterways on its seaward side and a girdle of fortifications built by Vauban encircling the rest. The whole set in a ring of dark water which fills the moat. It is thoroughly Flemish in character, and, seen from the water, must resemble a city on a delft tile. The moral attitude of the town has always been one of robust activity. Even its patron saints are among the most industrious and enterprising in the calendar--notably St. Eloi, who brought Christianity to the Dunkerquois and to whom the original Dunkirk (church on the dunes) was dedicated.

All the history of the town is tinged with a vigor which has blown in to it from the sea. Here the crusading ships of Baldwin of Flanders, and later those of St. Louis of France, were fitted out. After the momentous marriage of Marie of Burgundy had thrown the city for a time under the dominion of Spain it played a brilliant part in the game of the period--piracy.

The quaint tower on the quay--called Lugenhaer, the Liar--was used at that epoch to give false signals to ships at sea. But it dates from a much earlier period, and was one of twenty-eight towers with which Baldwin of Flanders bound together the wall with which he surrounded the city. The Liar and the belfry of the recently ruined Cathedral of St. Eloi were the only interesting architectural bits left in Dunkirk. The thirteenth century tower, dark and strong at its base, rises to a great height, flowering into restrained tracery at the top and shepherding under its shadow the heart of the town, which lies below it. This is the lodestone. Toward it I turned after leaving the battered hotel that first morning at Dunkirk.

CITY OF SHATTERED HOMES

From the snowy Place de la Gare the street cars started regularly in divergent directions, but oh, the gloom of those dead streets which they passed! Wide streets, winding between rows of low houses, plain and solid, but built on a neighborly plan. Their desolation is the more marked because of this innate, homelike quality. In almost all of them the window and door spaces were boarded up, and the first impression was rather that of a deserted city than of a demolished one. But a second glance showed that destruction had come from the sky, tearing away the roof, annihilating the interior, and rendering the house uninhabitable, perhaps irreparable, though the walls might to a certain extent be left standing. Often the havoc was more apparent, exposing the bare skeleton of a home and the shattered remnants of household comforts in shocking nudity.

The freakishness of destruction by bombardment is proverbial. It is this which creates in the timid an intense anxiety and in the hardy the willingness to take a chance. The 8-year-old son of the chief surgeon at the Military Hospital, stretching out his hand during a bombardment, said calmly, "Of course it _may_ fall on _that_, but there is plenty of room on each side." And this rather sums up the spirit of the Dunkerquois who remain.

Of a population of 40,000, about 5,000 are left, and most of these have become modern cave men. To be thoroughly up to date one must live in a "casemate." In every quarter of the town posters announce the locality of these public refuges. They are either cellars reinforced overhead, or dugouts in the public squares, strongly roofed with corrugated iron, which is covered with wood and sandbags. Often there is extra trench work inside, always a tight little stove with a pipe running the length of the cave, plank benches along the sides, and usually beds with army blankets.

DODGING THE BOMBS

Into these refuges the Dunkerquois has learned to precipitate himself with extraordinary celerity. He considers a minute and a half sufficient time in which to gain safety, no matter where he may be when the "alerte" is given. When there is a bombardment from the land side the alarm is sounded as the obus leaves the gun at the front. It takes 90 seconds for its flight to Dunkirk. So accurately is this calculated that casualties seldom result from a land bombardment. The inhabitants scuttle into safety, and the damage is limited to bricks and mortar. The peppering from sea is also taken lightly. The firing is very rapid, but it is soon over, and the shots are comparatively small, passing clean through the walls without shattering them. It is the air raids which are dreaded, and these are increasingly frequent and destructive. Often the chugging of the motors can be heard in the thick darkness for a quarter of an hour or more before there is an explosion, and this is a nerve-racking experience.

A striking feature of the streets in Dunkirk is the incumbrance of the sidewalks by boxes filled with stones and sandbags. These cover the windows and approaches to the cellars and serve as shock absorbers against flying pieces of shell.

And why does any one stay in so precarious an outpost on the verge of the fighting line? Some perhaps because to set forth alone or with a brood of children into an unknown world already trampled by countless refugees seems an equally perilous outlook. Others because their maintenance still depends upon the docks and shipyards, though the 6,000 longshoremen usually employed about the piers have disappeared. Then there are those whose interests are bound up in a shop or other investment in the town, and business is brisk in Dunkirk, owing to the presence of two armies. A few there are who are not only _of_ Dunkirk but who _are_ Dunkirk itself, upon whose presence depends the prosperity of the town and its usefulness to the State.

STILL A LIVELY PORT

For if the picturesque landmarks have disappeared, Dunkirk has by no means lost its sea prestige. It is the third port of France, and though its position is singularly exposed it is largely through its harbor that the British Army has been revictualed since the beginning of the war. This renders still more remarkable the fact that not one ship has been lost between Dunkirk and the English port of clearing. One does not appreciate at first glance all that this implies. It means for one thing that some one must sit tight at Dunkirk. Traffic by sea has gone on uninterruptedly and until recently has been quite that of normal times. Now, owing to the recent restrictions on imports and exports, it is greatly reduced, though still regular. The sailings and dockings take place on schedule time.

One of those largely responsible for the order of the port is the Consular Agent of the United States, M. Morel, also President of the Chamber of Commerce of Dunkirk. His house, a mere skeleton, has long since been abandoned for the superior comforts and safety of the cellar. Attached to the jamb of the almost equally ruined office building his small sign in black and gold makes a brave showing. The front of the building had been largely torn away and with it a part of the roof. Looking up one saw a dizzy arrangement of laths and rafters, suggestive of the underside of a heap of jackstraws. But the staircase was firm and led to a small back room, where a bright fire burned and where business was transacted as usual; not only the business of the port, for while I was there an American Red Cross doctor and a bevy of nurses came in to have their passports renewed.

Another home which I had the privilege of entering, that of Commandant Boultheel, had been more fortunate, for it stood as yet untouched by disaster. Here in an atmosphere of warm charm, a serene and gracious hostess dispensed hospitality to her friends. Pewter and old china on the walls and a great fire of logs dispelled the depression of the outside world. Around the table were men of war and men of the world, who represented the finest qualities of the French. Among them was a valiant Préfet du Nord, who had spent ten months as hostage in a German prison, using his time to study English and reread Horace. In fact, I felt, as I had on the train, that the further I got from Paris the nearer I came to the heart of France.

A glimpse of "cave life" I had in the pharmacie maintained by the Sisters of the Sacré Coeur in the basement of the Hôtel de Ville, where it had been temporarily installed by the city, its own quarters being untenable. This was a large space lighted by electricity and crowded with bottles and jars, bundles of herbs and bandages, and made cheerful by the bright faces of the sisters. In another portion of the cellar they sleep, living entirely underground.

Families are large in Dunkirk, and children troop unconcernedly to and fro between home and school. To them the nightly flight to the casemate is no longer a wild adventure.

BUSINESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES

The business part of the town has not the sad aspect of the residence streets, for it is full of life. The decrepit shops, half boarded up, many of them resembling a face with a bandage over one eye, are doing a lively business. With the demands of a large floating population of two armies, Dunkirk is not suffering commercially. Department stores, book shops, shoe stores, provision shops of all kinds, make the most of a short day. Oranges, figs, dates, nuts, and conserved food of all kinds are much in evidence, also warm clothing, blankets, boots, and novels. The restaurant of the Hôtel Chapeau Rouge was filled with French and English officers, and an excellent meal was served much as it would be in Paris. At 4:30 everything is closed. Lights are extinguished, windows and doors are sealed with their householders behind them, unless the latter are among those who seek the comparative safety of the suburbs at nightfall. For though the entire surrounding country is subject to bombardment, the town is the centre of attack. In the twilight of the unlighted streets scarce a footfall is heard. Only the occasional rumble of a heavy cannon shakes the air. Behind the wall of darkness pulses a full life undismayed by the terrors of the approaching night or the possibilities of the tomorrow.

A STAG AT BAY

In the heart of the forest I once saw a stag leading his herd to the shelter of a rock in the rush of an oncoming storm. Having urged them into crouching positions around him, he turned and with a simple gesture lifted his head to the storm. There was that in his attitude which compelled reverence. One mentally saluted, though one might think "poor, silly beast, in what way could he mitigate the lash of the tempest?" But instinctively he had obeyed the highest for which he had been created, the protection of the weak. And his calm presence caught away all panic from those around him. Often while in Dunkirk this scene came back to me, recalled by the simple matter-of-courseness with which these brave men and equally brave women stayed on because it was the place for them to be.

At the Military Hospital of Rosendael, with the exception of the intrepid surgeon and the almoner, it is the women who hold the position. Originally the city hospital, it was taken over by the army at the beginning of the war. An immense building with modern equipment and a capacity for 700 patients, it has been necessary of late to evacuate many of the sections because of the increasing frequency of the bombardments. The hospital has been struck many times and one ward completely destroyed. As it happened there were no soldiers in that section, it being used as a maternity hospital for the city. Several women and little children were killed and also the sister in charge, Sister St. Etienne, so dear to her co-workers that she is never spoken of without tears. She had just finished her rounds for the night when the alarm came. Her one thought was to save her ward from panic. A bomb crashing through the roof hurled a beam across the sister, killing her instantly and wrecking the entire wing.

"FOR ALL AMERICAN WOMEN"

In spite of this tragedy and of recurring attacks, the other sisters and the head nurse, Mlle. Guyot, have held their posts with quiet heroism and have never lost an hour's duty. The patients now are mostly convalescent, because fresh cases are no longer brought there.

The supplies of shirts, pajamas, and bandages sent from America were gratefully commented upon by Mlle. Guyot, and I was touched by similar expressions from the men. One poor aviator, terribly burned, but recovering, put up a bandaged hand and saluted me "for all American women." Another poilu wove for me a table mat of red, white, and blue cord. All were fervent in their good wishes.

Everywhere warmth and order prevailed, from the wards where the bandaged soldiers sat about with their pipes and their knitting to the big bakery where the fragrant brown bread is baked and to the kitchens with their caldrons of broth and crisp roasts of meat.

Dry, well ventilated "abris" or bomb shelters have been built in connection with each section of the hospital. The surgeon, who sleeps in a cellar near the centre, is the first to assist his patients to shelter in case of an alarm. There, underground, long games of cards are played on the brink of the unknown. This is not callousness, but is done with deliberate intent by the clever surgeon, (a refugee from Lille,) knowing that by this means his men may be saved a nervous strain which might prove fatal.

Mlle. Guyot, who has been at the hospital since the beginning of the war, knows as well as any one what the city has endured. It was she who said to me:

"I shall never forget that Dunkirk has borne the weight of the war from the first day; that she has seen the exodus of the Belgian population, to whom she has given refuge as well as to the people of the Department du Nord; that she has known the passing of innumerable armies going and coming from the Yser; that in October, 1914, she began to be bombarded, having at the same time to fulfill the immense duty of bringing in and caring for the wounded from that immortal battlefield; and through it all I have seen Dunkirk living and working and saving with a smile!"

The military position of Dunkirk is sometimes confusing because it has been alternately on the French and English fronts. The English are now retiring, but sentinels of three nationalities still guard the city gates; English Tommy and French poilu stand with their arms across each other's shoulders, the Belgian stands apart.

On the sands of Malo, which is but a prolongation of Dunkirk, with a sweeping beach toward the North Sea, strange men from Tonquin were digging trenches--dark men branded by the sun and the mark of the East, with warm dabs of color on their high cheekbones, and small opaque eyes under rising brows. The uniform of the French Colonial is often a medley. He looks as though he had begun "dressing up" like children in the attic, and as though his mind had fallen short of his expectations. Out on those bleak sands his touches of rich blue, crimson, and green had almost the fervor of stained glass set against the dark and sinister sea. To the north the Belgian coast cut the background with a livid streak of sand.

In spite of the moving figures, the loneliness was as of the ends of the earth. The silence was accentuated rather than broken by the purr of the cannon and the mewing of a stray gull slapped sidewise by the wind. But it is thus that I like to think of Dunkirk--scourged by the wind, blotted out by the storm, knowing that for the time being her stout hearts are safe.

As the sea has been the life of Dunkirk in the past, so it will be its resurrection. The city cannot be struck a deathblow from the land side as has many another less favorably situated. But what a unique protégé for some god-mothering American city to help re-establish through her sympathy and aid!

Is it any wonder that France has just included in the arms of Dunkirk the following legend in addition to the one gained by the naval battle of 1793: "Ville heroique, sert d'exemple à toute la nation"?

Brutal Treatment of Italian Prisoners

Sworn statements from British soldiers returned from German prison camps and hospitals received by Reuter's Agency (the Associated Press of Great Britain) indicate that systematic brutality is practiced there upon Italian prisoners. Lance Corporal Horace Hills, 7th Suffolk Regiment, made the following statement under oath:

Five or six thousand Italians came in. They had traveled three or four days, and had had nothing at all to eat. After they arrived soup was brought in, and, as they were starving, they rushed at it. The Germans then dashed forward and stabbed them with their swords and bayonets, and killed and wounded a lot. Seven or eight Italians were dying every day in the camp of starvation. They had no parcels. I saw an Englishmen give an Italian bread, and the Italian went down on his knees and kissed his hands.

Private J. F. Jackson, King's Liverpool Regiment, swore:

One Italian told me they had been fifteen days on the journey and had only three meals all the time. Our hospital lager was separated from the camp by barbed wire; we took some bread and threw it over the wire to the Italians; they all began to grab for it, but a lot of Germans rushed up and drew their bayonets and flourished them in the air in a threatening manner, and kicked and threw the Italians about, and got the bread for themselves.

At Friedrichsfeld the treatment of the Italians was equally barbarous, the sentries shooting them for trying to get food from the British. Equally revolting stories come from Ohrdrup, Nammelburgh, Stendal, Soltau, Limburg, and Hamburg.

Germany's Attempt to Divide Belgium

Official Summary of Recent Political Events in Flanders, Issued by the Belgian Foreign Office

_Germany's plan to divide Belgium by organizing a small group of "activists" to establish a so-called Council of Flanders for the purpose of separating the Flemish from the Walloon Provinces, was described in the April issue of CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE, pp. 91-96, along with the fearless opposition which the attempt created. The following summary of the case, with a fuller array of dates and details, has since been prepared by the Belgian Foreign Office at St. Adresse, France, the seat of King Albert's Government in exile:_

The semi-official Wolff Agency in Berlin announced on Jan. 20, 1918, that the so-called Council of Flanders had proclaimed the autonomy of Flanders Dec. 22, 1917. Soon after that action, which had passed unnoticed and had left Belgian opinion indifferent and scornful, Herr von Walraff, German Secretary of the Interior, had judged the time opportune for a trip to Belgium, (Jan. 1, 1918.) The "council," after getting into close relations with him, had taken up the decree which the Landtag had intrusted to him on the 4th of February preceding, and had declared that it would submit itself to a popular referendum.

At length a commission of executive officials was created; it included heads for the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Public Works, Arts and Sciences, Justice, Finance, Labor, National Defense, Posts and Telegraph, and the Navy. The German telegraphic agencies sent out this news in all directions to spread the idea that Flanders was showing an intention of detaching itself from Belgium, and to give the impression of a spontaneous popular movement for political separation.

The thought that inspired this intrigue dates back to a period almost two years earlier. On April 5, 1916, the German Chancellor, in defining the war aims of Germany before the Reichstag, had outlined the imperial policy of establishing a protectorate over the Flemings. Later there were found in Belgium some obscure and discredited citizens who, betraying their sacred duty, placed themselves in the pay of the enemy and consented to make themselves the agents and accomplices of the invaders.

GERMAN ACT OF SEPARATION

On Feb. 4, 1917, an assembly composed of 200 Belgians speaking the Flemish language met and voted for the creation of a "Council of Flanders." On March 3 this body sent a deputation to Berlin, and the Chancellor announced to it that "the policy tending toward the administrative separation would be pursued with all the vigor possible during the occupation," and that "during the negotiations and after the conclusion of peace the empire would not cease to watch over the development of the Flemish race." The German decrees dividing Belgium into two administrative regions followed close upon these declarations, (March 21, 1917.)

At the end of 1917 the German authorities believed that the moment had come to consummate the enterprise by completing the administrative separation with a political separation. Thus the end would be attained: Belgium would be dismembered; one part of the country would fall under vassalage to Germany, and, in case there were no annexation, would become in a way a sphere of influence for the empire.