Part 6

After dark, in a drizzling rain, we came to what seemed to be a town, for our automobile lamps spread their radiant streams over wet pavements. But these were the only lights. Tongues of loose brick had been shot across the cobblestones and dimly the jagged skyline of broken walls of buildings on either side could be discovered. It was Senlis, the first town I had seen which could be classified as a town in ruins. Afterwards, one became a sort of specialist in ruins, comparing the latest with previous examples of destruction.

Approaching footsteps broke the silence. A small, very small, French soldier--he was not more than five feet two--appeared and we followed him to an ambulance that had broken down for want of gasoline. It belonged to the Société de Femmes de France. The little soldier had put on a uniform as a volunteer for the only service his stature would permit. In those days many volunteer organisations were busy seeking to “help.” There was a kind of competition among them for wounded. This ambulance had got one and was taking him to Paris, off the regular route of the wounded who were being sent south. The boot-soles of a prostrate figure showed out of the dark recess of the interior. This French officer, a major, had been hit in the shoulder. He tried to control the catch in his voice which belied his assertion that he was suffering little pain. The drizzling rain was chilly. It was a long way to Paris yet.

“We will make inquiries,” said our kindly general.

A man who came out of the gloom said that there was a hospital kept by some Sisters of Charity in Senlis which had escaped destruction. The question was put into the recesses of the ambulance:

“Would you prefer to spend the night here and go on in the morning?”

“Yes, monsieur, I--should--like--that--better!” The tone left no doubt of the relief that the journey in a car with poor springs was not to be continued after hours of waiting, marooned in the street of a ruined town.

While the ambulance passed inside the hospital gate, I spoke with an elderly woman who came to a nearby door. Cool and definite she was as a French soldier, bringing home the character of the women of France which this war has made so well-known to the world.

“Were you here during the fighting?”

“Yes, monsieur, and during the shelling and the burning. The shelling was not enough. The Germans said that some one fired on their soldiers--a boy, I believe--so they set fire to the houses. One could only look and hate and pray as their soldiers passed through, looking so unconquerable, making all seem so terrible for France. Was it to be ’70 over again? One’s heart was of stone, monsieur. _Tiens!_ They came back faster than they went. A mitrailleuse was down there at the end of the street, our mitrailleuse! The bullets went cracking by. They crack, the bullets; they do not whistle like the stories say. Then the street was empty of Germans who could run. The dead they could not run, nor the wounded. Then the French came up the street, running, too--running after the Germans. It was good, monsieur, good, good! My heart was not of stone then, monsieur. It could not beat fast enough for happiness. It was the heart of a girl. I remember it all very clearly. I always shall, monsieur.”

“_Allons!_” said our statesman. “The officer is well cared for.”

The world seemed normal again as we passed through other towns unharmed and swept by the dark countryside, till a red light rose in our path and a sharp “_Qui vive?_” came out of the night as we slowed down. This was not the only sentry call from a French Territorial in front of a barricade.

At a second halt we found a chain as well as a barricade across the road. For a moment it seemed that even the suave parliamentarism of our statesman or the authority of our general and our passes could not convince one grizzled reservist, doing his duty for France at the rear while the young men were at the front, that we had any right to be going into Paris at that hour of the night. The password, which was “Paris,” helped, and we felt it a most appropriate password as we came to the broad streets of the city that was safe.

There is a popular idea that Napoleon was a super-genius who won all his battles alone. It is wrong. He had a lot of Frenchmen along to help. Much the same kind of Frenchmen live to-day. Not until they fought again would the world believe this. It seems that the excitable Gaul, whom some people thought would become demoralised in face of German organisation, merely talks with his hands. In a great crisis he is cool, as he always was. I like the French for their democracy and humanity. I like them, too, for leaving their war to France and Marianne; for not dragging in God as do the Germans. For it is just possible that God is not in the fight. We don’t know that He even approved of the war.

VI

AND CALAIS WAITS

Calais, the objective of a struggle for world power--Last reserves of the British--A city of refugees--Heroic care of the wounded--“Life going on as usual”--The cheerful Belgians--In a French hospital--An astonished but happy Tommy.

To the traveller, Calais had been the symbol of the shortest route from London to Paris, the shortest spell of torment in crossing the British Channel. It was a point where one felt infinite relief or sad physical anticipations. In the last days of November Calais became the symbol of a struggle for world power. The British and the French were fighting to hold Calais; the Germans to get it. In Calais Germany would have her foot on the Atlantic coast. She could look across only twenty-two miles of water to the chalk cliffs at Dover. She would be as near her rival as twice the length of Manhattan Island; within the range of a modern gun; within an hour by steamer and twenty minutes by aeroplane.

The long battle-front from Switzerland to the North Sea had been established. There was no getting around the Allied flank; there had ceased to be a flank. To win Calais, Germany must crush through without any manœuvre by main force. From the cafés where the British newspaper men gathered England received its news, which they gleaned from refugees and stragglers and passing officers. They wrote something every day, for England must have something about that dizzy head-on wrestle in the mud, that writhing line of changing positions, of new trenches rising behind the old destroyed by German artillery. The British were fighting with their last reserves on the Ypres-Armentieres line. The French divisions to the south were suffering no less heavily, and beyond them the Belgians were trying to hold the last strip of their land under Belgian sovereignty. Cordons of guards which kept back the observer from the struggle could not keep back the truth. Something ominous was in the air.

It was worth while being in that old town as it waited on the issue in the late October rains. Its fishermen crept out in the mornings from the shelter of its quays, where refugees gathered in crowds hoping to get away by steamer. Like lost souls, carrying all the possessions they could on their backs, these refugees. There was numbness in their movements and their faces were blank--the paralysis of brain from sudden disaster. The children did not cry, but munched the dry bread which their parents gave them mechanically.

The newspaper men said that “refugee stuff” was already stale; eviction and misery were stale. Was Calais to be saved? That was the only question. If the Germans came, one thought that Madame at the hotel would still be at her desk, unruffled, businesslike, and she would still serve an excellent salad for _déjeuner_; the fishermen would still go out to sea for their daily catch.

What was going to happen? What might not happen? It was human helplessness to the last degree for all behind the wrestlers. Fate was in the battle-line. There could be no resisting that fate. If the Germans came, they came. Belgian staff officers with their high-crowned, gilt-braided caps went flying by in their cars. There always seemed a great many Belgian staff officers back of the Belgian army in the restaurants and cafés. Habit is strong, even in war. They did not often miss their _déjeuners_. On the Dixmude line all that remained of the active Belgian Army was in a death struggle in the rain and mud. To these _shipperkes_, honour without stint, as to their gallant king.

Slightly wounded Belgians and Belgian stragglers roamed the streets of Calais. Some had a few belongings wrapped up in handkerchiefs. Others had only the clothes on their backs. Yet they were cheerful; this was the amazing thing. They moved about, laughing and chatting in groups. Perhaps this was the best way. Possibly the relief at being out of the hell at the front was the only emotion they could feel. But their cheerfulness was none the less a dash of sunlight for Calais.

The French were grim. They were still polite; they went on with their work. No unwounded French soldiers were to be seen, except the old Territorials guarding the railroad and the highways. The military organisation of France, which knew what war meant and had expected war, had drawn every man to his place and held him there with the inexorable hand of military and racial discipline. Calais had never considered caring for wounded, and the wounded poured in. I saw an automobile with a wounded man stop at a crowded corner, in the midst of refugees and soldiers; a doctor was leaning over him, and he died while the car waited.

But the newspaper men were saying that stories of wounded men were likewise stale. So they were, for Europe was red with wounded. Train after train brought in its load from the front, and Calais tried to care for them. At least, it had buildings which would give shelter from the rain. On the floor of a railroad freight shed the wounded lay in long rows, with just enough space between them to make an alley. Those in the row against one of the walls were German prisoners. Their green uniforms melted into the stone of the wall and did not show the mud stains. Two slightly wounded had their heads together whispering. They were helplessly tired, though not as tired as most of the others, those two stalwart young men; but they seemed to be relieved, almost happy. It did not matter what happened to them, now, so long as they could rest.

Next to them a German was dying, and others badly hit were glassy-eyed in their fatigue and exhaustion. This was the word, exhaustion, for all the wounded. They had not the strength for passion or emotion. The fuel for those fires was in ashes. All they wanted in this world was to lie quiet; and some fell asleep not knowing or caring probably whether they were in Germany or in France. In the other rows, in contrast with this chameleon, baffling green, were the red trousers of the French and the dark blue of the Belgian uniforms, sharing the democracy of exhaustion with their foe.

A misty rain was falling. In a bright spot of light through a window one by one the wounded were being lifted up on to a seat, if they were not too badly hit, and onto an operating-table if they were very badly hit. A doctor and a sturdy Frenchwoman of about thirty, in spotless white, were in charge. Another woman undid the first-aid bandage and others applied a spray. No time was lost; there were too many wounded to care for. The thing must be done as rapidly as possible before another train-load came in. If these attendants were tired, they did not know it any more than the wounded had realised their fatigue in the passion of battle. The improvised arrangement to meet an emergency had an appeal which more elaborate arrangements of organisation which I had seen lacked. It made war a little more red; humanity a little more human and kind and helpless under the scourge which it had brought on itself.

Though Calais was not prepared for wounded, when they came the women of energy and courage turned to the work without jealousy, without regard to red tape, without fastidiousness. I have in mind half a dozen other women about the streets that day in uniforms of short skirts and helmets, who belonged to some volunteer organisation which had taken some care as to its regimentals. They were types not characteristic of the whole, of whom one practical English doctor said: “We don’t mind as long as they do not get in the way.” Their criticisms of Calais and the arrangements were outspoken; nothing was adequate; conditions were filthy; it was shameful. They were going to write to the English newspapers about it and appeal for money. When they had organised a proper hospital, one should see how the thing ought to be done. Meantime, these volunteer Frenchwomen were doing the best they knew how and doing it now.

A fine-looking young Frenchman who had a shell-wound in the thigh was being lifted onto the table. He shuddered with pain, as he clenched his teeth; yet when the dressing was finished he was able to breathe his thanks. On the seat was a Congo negro who had been with one of the Belgian regiments, coal black and thick-lipped, with bloodshot eyes; an unsensitised human organism, his face as expressionless as his bare back with holes made by shell-fragments. A young Frenchwoman-- she could not have been more than nineteen--with a face of singular refinement, sprayed his wounds with the definiteness of one trained to such work, though two days before it had probably never occurred to her as being in the possibilities of her existence. Her coolness and the coolness of the other women in their silent activity had a charm that went with one’s devout respect.

The French wounded, too, were silent, as if in the presence of a crisis which overwhelmed their personal thoughts. Help was needed at the front; they knew it. On sixty trains in one day sixty thousand French passed through Calais. With a pass from the French commandant at Calais, I got aboard one of these trains down at the railroad yards at dawn. This lot were Turcos, in command of a white-haired veteran of African campaigns. An utter change of atmosphere from the freight shed! Perhaps it is only the wounded who have time to think. My companions in the officers’ car were as cheery as the brown devils whom they led. They had come from the trenches on the Marne, and their commissariat was a boiled ham, some bread and red wine. Enough! It was war time, as they said.

“We were in the Paris railroad yards. That is all we saw of Paris, and in the night. Hard luck!”

They had left the Marne the previous day. By night they could be in the fight. It did not take long to send reinforcements when the line was closed to all except military traffic and one train followed close on the heels of another.

They did not know where they were going. One never knew where. Probably they would get orders at Dunkirk. Father Joffre, when there was a call for reinforcements never was in a panicky hurry about it. He seemed to understand that the general who made the call could hold out a little longer; but the reinforcements were always up on time. A long head had Father Joffre.

Now I am going to say that life was going on as usual at Dunkirk; that is the obvious thing to say. The nearer the enemy, the more characteristic that trite observation of those who have followed the roads of war in Europe. At Dunkirk you might have a good meal within sound of the thunder of the guns of the British monitors which were helping the Belgians to hold their line. At Dunkirk most excellent pastry was for sale in a confectionery shop. Why shouldn’t tartmakers go on making tarts and selling them? The British naval reserve officers used to take tea in this shop. Little crowds of citizens who had nothing to do, which is the most miserable of vocations in such a crisis, gathered to look at armoured motor cars which had come in from the front with bullet dents, which gave them the atmosphere of battle.

Beyond Dunkirk, one might see wounded Belgians fresh from the front, staggering in, crawling in, hobbling in from under the havoc of shell-fire, their first-aid bandages saturated with mud, their ungainly and impracticable uniforms oozing mud, ghosts of men--these _shipperkes_ of the nation that was unprepared for war, who had done their part, when the only military thought was for more men, unwounded men, British, French, Belgian, to stem the German tide. Yet many of these Belgians, even these, were cheerful. They could still smile and say, “_Bonne chance!_”

Indeed, there seemed no limit to the cheerfulness of Belgians. At a hospital in Calais I met a Belgian professor with his head a white ball of bandages, showing a hole for one eye and a slit for the mouth. He had been one of the cyclist force which took account of many German cavalry scouts in the first two weeks of the war. A staff automobile had run over him on the road.

“I think the driver of the car was careless,” he said mildly, as if he were giving a gentle reproof to a student.

By contrast, he had reason to be thankful for his lot. Looked after by a brave man attendant in another room were the wounded who were too horrible to see; who must die. Then in another, you had a picture of a smiling British regular, with a British nurse and an Englishwoman of Calais to look after him. They read to him, they talked to him, they vied with each other in rearranging his pillows or bedclothes. He was a hero of a story; but it rather puzzled him why he should be. Why were a lot of people paying so much attention to him for doing his duty?

In the cavalry, he had been separated from his regiment on the retreat from Mons. Wandering about the country, he came up with a regiment of cuirassiers and asked if he might not fight with them. A number of the cuirassiers spoke English. They took him into the ranks. The regiment went far over on the Marne, through towns with French names which he could not pronounce, this man in khaki with the French troopers. He was marked. _C’est un Anglais!_ People cheered him and threw flowers to him in regions which had never seen one of the soldiers of the Ally before.

Yes, officers and gentlemen invited him to dine, like he was a gentleman, he said, and not a Tommy, and the French Government had given him a decoration called the Legion of Honour or something like that. This was all very fine; but the best thing was that his own colonel, when he returned, had him up before his company and made a speech to him for fighting with the French when he could not find his own regiment. He was supremely happy, this Tommy. In waiting Calais one might witness about all the emotions and contrasts of war--and many which one does not find at the front.

VII

IN GERMANY

The other side of the shield--A German guard--A people organised-- A machine of psychical force--“A people who think only in the offensive”--A nation trained to win--At a Berlin hotel-- Bluffing the nation into confidence--A “normal” city-- Officially instilled hate--England the cause--A Red Cross comparison--Everything to win!--“Are you for or against us?”-- The German point of view--A hothouse mind trained by a diligent paternalism--The “brand of the _Lusitania_.”

Never had the war seemed a more monstrous satire than on that first day in Germany as the train took me to Berlin. It was the other side of the wall of gun and rifle-fire, where another set of human beings were giving life in order to take life. The Lord had fashioned them in the same pattern on both sides. Their children were born in the same way; they bled from wounds in the same way--but why go on in this vicious circle of thought? My impressions of Germany were brief and the clearer, perhaps, for being brief and drawn on the fresh background of Paris and Calais waiting to know their fate; of England staring across the Channel in a suspense which her phlegmatic nature would not confess to learn the result of the battle for the Channel ports; of England and France straining with all their strength to hold, while the Germans exerted all theirs to gain, a goal; of Holland, solid mistress of her neutrality, fearing for it and profiting by it while she took in the Belgian foundlings dropped on her steps--Holland, that little land at peace, with the storms lashing around her.

The stiff and soldierly appearing reserve officer with bristling Kaiserian moustache, so professedly alert and efficient, who looked at the mottled back of my passport and frowned at the recent visa, “_A la Place de Calais, bon pour aller à Dunkerque, P. O. Le Chef d’État Major_,” but let me by without questions or fuss, aroused visions of a frontier stone wall studded with bayonets.

For something about him expressed a certain character of downright militancy lacking in either an English or a French guard. I could imagine his contempt for both and particularly for a “sloppy, undisciplined” American guard, as he would have called one of ours. Personal feelings did not enter into his thoughts. He had none; only national feelings, this outpost of the national organism. The mood of the moment was friendliness to Americans. Germany wished to create the impression on the outside world through the agency of the neutral press that she was in danger of starving, while she amassed munitions for her summer campaign and the Allies were lulled into confidence of siege by famine rather than by arms. A double, a treble purpose the starving campaign served; for it also ensured economy of foodstuffs, while nothing so puts the steel into a soldier’s heart as the thought that the enemy is trying to beat him through taking the bread out of his mouth and the mouths of the women and children dependent upon him.

Tears and laughter and moods and passions organised! Seventy million in the union of determined earnestness of a life-and-death issue! Germany had studied more than how to make war with an army. She had studied how the people at home should help an army to make war.

“With our immense army, which consists of all the able-bodied youth of the people,” as a German officer said, “when we go to war the people must all be passionate for war. Their impulse must be the impulse of the army. Their spirit will drive the army on. They must be drilled, too, in their part. No item in national organisation is too small to have its effect.”

Compared to the French, who had turned grim and gave their prayers as individuals to hearten their soldiers, the Germans were as responsive as a stringed instrument to the master musician’s touch. A whisper in Berlin was enough to set a new wave of passion in motion, which spread to the trenches east and west. Something like the team work of the “rah-rah” of college athletics was applied to the nation. The soft pedal on this emotion, the loud on that, or a new cry inaugurated which all took up, not with the noisy, paid insincerity of a claque, but with the vibrant force of a trained orchestra with the brasses predominant.

There seemed less of the spontaneity of an individualistic people than of the exaltation of a religious revival. If the army were a machine of material force, then the people were a machine of psychical force. Though the thing might leave the observer cold, as a religious revival leaves the sceptic, yet he must admire. I was told that I should succumb to the contagion as others had; but it was not the optimism which was dinned into my ears that affected me as much as side lights.