A Hilltop on the Marne - Mildred Aldrich
Just after we left Esbly I saw first an English officer, standing in his
stirrups and signaling across a field, where I discovered a detachment
of English artillery going toward the hill. A little farther along the
road we met a couple of English officers--pipes in their mouths and
sticks in their hands--strolling along as quietly and smilingly as if
there were no such thing as war. Naturally I wished to speak to them.
I was so shut in that I could see only directly in front of me, and if
you ever rode behind a big cart horse I need not tell you that although
he walks slowly and heavily he walks steadily, and will not stop for any
pulling on the reins unless he jolly well chooses. As we approached the
officers, I leaned forward and said, "Beg your pardon," but by the time
they realized that they had been addressed in English we had passed. I
yanked at the flap at the back of the cart, got it open a bit, looked
out to find them standing in the middle of the road, staring after us in
amazement.
The only thing I had the sense to call out was:--
"Where 'd you come from?"
One of them made an emphatic gesture with his stick, over his shoulder
in the direction from which they had come.
"Where are you going?" I called.
He made the same gesture toward Esbly, and then we all laughed heartily,
and by that time we were too far apart to continue the interesting
conversation, and that was all the enlightenment I got out of that
meeting. The sight of them and their cannon made me feel a bit serious.
I thought to myself: "If the Germans are not expected here--well, it
looks like it." We finished the journey in silence, and I was so tired
when I got back to the house that I fell into bed, and only drank a
glass of milk that Amelie insisted on pouring down my throat.
XII
September 8, 1914.
You can get some idea of how exhausted I was on that night of Wednesday,
September 2, when I tell you that I waked the next morning to find that
I had a picket at my gate. I did not know until Amelie came to get my
coffee ready the next morning--that was Thursday, September 3--can it be
that it is only five days ago! She also brought me news that they were
preparing to blow up the bridges on the Marne; that the post-office had
gone; that the English were cutting the telegraph wires.
While I was taking my coffee, quietly, as if it were an everyday
occurrence, she said: "Well, madame, I imagine that we are going to see
the Germans. Pere is breaking an opening into the underground passage
under the stable, and we are going to put all we can out of sight.
Will you please gather up what you wish to save, and it can be hidden
there?"
I don't know that I ever told you that all the hill is honeycombed with
those old subterranean passages, like the one we saw at Provins. They
say that they go as far as Crecy-en-Brie, and used to connect the royal
palace there with one on this hill.
Naturally I gave a decided refusal to any move of that sort, so far as I
was concerned. My books and portraits are the only things I should be
eternally hurt to survive. To her argument that the books could be put
there,--there was room enough,--I refused to listen. I had no idea of
putting my books underground to be mildewed. Besides, if it had been
possible I would not have attempted it--and it distinctly was
impossible. I felt a good deal like the Belgian refugies I had
seen,--all so well dressed; if my house was going up, it was going up in
its best clothes. I had just been uprooted once--a horrid
operation--and I did not propose to do it again so soon. To that my
mind was made up.
Luckily for me--for Amelie was as set as I was--the argument was cut
short by a knock at the front door. I opened it to find standing there
a pretty French girl whom I had been seeing every day, as, morning and
evening, she passed my gate to and from the railway station. Sooner or
later I should have told you about her if all this excitement had not
put it out of my mind and my letters. I did not know her name. I had
never got to asking Amelie who she was, though I was a bit surprised to
find any one of her type here where I had supposed there were only
farmers and peasants.
She apologized for presenting herself so informally: said she had come,
"de la parte de maman," to ask me what I proposed to do. I replied at
once, "I am staying."
She looked a little surprised: said her mother wished to do the same,
but that her only brother was with the colors; that he had confided his
young wife and two babies to her, and that the Germans were so brutal to
children that she did not dare risk it.
"Of course, you know," she added, "that every one has left Couilly; all
the shops are closed, and nearly every one has gone from Voisins and
Quincy. The mayor's wife left last night. Before going she came to us
and advised us to escape at once, and even found us a horse and
cart--the trains are not running. So mother thought that, as you were a
foreigner, and all alone, we ought not to go without at least offering
you a place in the wagon--the chance to go with us."
I was really touched, and told her so, but explained that I should stay.
She was rather insistent--said her mother would be so distressed at
leaving me alone with only a little group of women and children about
me, who might, at the last moment, be panic-stricken.
I explained to her as well as I could that I was alone in the world,
poor myself, and that I could not see myself leaving all that I
valued,--my home; to have which I had made a supreme effort, and for
which I had already a deep affection,--to join the band of refugies,
shelterless, on the road, or to look for safety in a city, which, if the
Germans passed here, was likely to be besieged and bombarded. I finally
convinced her that my mind was made up. I had decided to keep my face
turned toward Fate rather than run away from it. To me it seemed the
only way to escape a panic--a thing of which I have always had a horror.
Seeing that nothing could make me change my mind, we shook hands, wished
each other luck, and, as she turned away, she said, in her pretty
French: "I am sorry it is disaster that brought us together, but I hope
to know you better when days are happier"; and she went down the hill.
When I returned to the dining-room I found that, in spite of my orders,
Amelie was busy putting my few pieces of silver, and such bits of china
from the buffet as seemed to her valuable,--her ideas and mine on that
point do not jibe,--into the waste-paper baskets to be hidden
underground.
I was too tired to argue. While I stood watching her there was a
tremendous explosion. I rushed into the garden. The picket, his gun on
his shoulder, was at the gate.
"What was that?" I called out to him.
"Bridge," he replied. "The English divisions are destroying the bridges
on the Marne behind them as they cross. That means that another
division is over."
I asked him which bridge it was, but of course he did not know. While I
was standing there, trying to locate it by the smoke, an English
officer, who looked of middle age, tall, clean-cut, rode down the road
on a chestnut horse, as slight, as clean-cut, and well groomed as
himself. He rose in his stirrups to look off at the plain before he saw
me. Then he looked at me, then up at the flags flying over the
gate,--saw the Stars and Stripes,--smiled, and dismounted.
"American, I see," he said.
I told him I was.
"Live here?" said he.
I told him that I did.
"Staying on?" he asked.
I answered that it looked like it.
He looked me over a moment before he said, "Please invite me into your
garden and show me that view."
I was delighted. I opened the gate, and he strolled in and sauntered
with a long, slow stride--a long-legged stride--out on to the lawn and
right down to the hedge, and looked off.
"Beautiful," he said, as he took out his field-glass, and turned up the
map case which hung at his side. "What town is that?" he asked,
pointing to the foreground.
I told him that it was Mareuil-on-the-Marne.
"How far off is it?" he questioned.
I told him that it was about two miles, and Meaux was about the same
distance beyond it.
"What town is that?" he asked, pointing to the hill.
I explained that the town on the horizon was Penchard--not really a
town, only a village; and lower down, between Penchard and Meaux, were
Neufmortier and Chauconin.
All this time he was studying his map.
"Thank you. I have it," he said. "It is a lovely country, and this is
a wonderful view of it, the best I have had."
For a few minutes he stood studying it in silence--alternatively looking
at his map and then through his glass. Then he dropped his map, put his
glasses into the case, and turned to me--and smiled. He had a winning
smile, sad and yet consoling, which lighted up a bronzed face, stern and
weary. It was the sort of smile to which everything was permitted.
"Married?" he said.
You can imagine what he was like when I tell you that I answered right
up, and only thought it was funny hours after--or at least I shook my
head cheerfully.
"You don't live here alone?" he asked.
"But I do," I replied.
He looked at me bravely a moment, then off at the plain.
"Lived here long?" he questioned.
I told him that I had lived in this house only three months, but that I
had lived in France for sixteen years.
Without a word he turned back toward the house, and for half a minute,
for the first time in my life, I had a sensation that it looked strange
for me to be an exile in a country that was not mine, and with no ties.
For a penny I would have told him the history of my life. Luckily he did
not give me time. He just strode down to the gate, and by the time he
had his foot in the stirrup I had recovered.
"Is there anything I can do for you, captain?" I asked.
He mounted his horse, looked down at me. Then he gave me
another of his rare smiles.
"No," he said, "at this moment there is nothing that you can do for me,
thank you; but if you could give my boys a cup of tea, I imagine that
you would just about save their lives." And nodding to me, he said to
the picket, "This lady is kind enough to offer you a cup of tea," and he
rode off, taking the road down the hill to Voisins.
I ran into the house, put on the kettle, ran up the road to call Amelie,
and back to the arbor to set the table as well as I could. The whole
atmosphere was changed. I was going to be useful.
I had no idea how many men I was going to feed. I had only seen three.
To this day I don't know how many I did feed. They came and came and
came. It reminded me of hens running toward a place where another hen
has found something good. It did not take me many minutes to discover
that these men needed something more substantial than tea. Luckily I
had brought back from Paris an emergency stock of things like biscuit,
dry cakes, jam, etc., for even before our shops were closed there was
mighty little in them. For an hour and a half I brewed pot after pot of
tea, opened jar after jar of jam and jelly, and tin after tin of biscuit
and cakes, and although it was hardly hearty fodder for men, they put it
down with a relish. I have seen hungry men, but never anything as
hungry as these boys.
I knew little about military discipline--less about the rules of active
service; so I had no idea that I was letting these hungry men--and
evidently hunger laughs at laws--break all the regulations of the army.
Their guns were lying about in any old place; their kits were on the
ground; their belts were unbuckled. Suddenly the captain rode up the
road and looked over the hedge at the scene. The men were sitting on
the benches, on the ground, anywhere, and were all smoking my best
Egyptian cigarettes, and I was running round as happy as a queen, seeing
them so contented and comfortable.
It was a rude awakening when the captain rode up the street.
There was a sudden jumping up, a hurried buckling up of belts, a grab
for kits and guns, and an unceremonious cut for the gate. I heard a
volley from the officer. I marked a serious effort on the part of the
men to keep the smiles off their faces as they hurriedly got their kits
on their backs and their guns on their shoulders, and, rigidly saluting,
dispersed up the hill, leaving two very straight men marching before the
gate as if they never in their lives had thought of anything but picket
duty.
The captain never even looked at me, but rode up the hill after his men.
A few minutes later he returned, dismounted at the gate, tied his horse,
and came in. I was a bit confused. But he smiled one of those smiles
of his, and I got right over it.
"Dear little lady," he said, "I wonder if there is any tea left for me?"
Was there! I should think so; and I thought to myself, as I led the way
into the dining-room, that he was probably just as hungry as his men.
While I was making a fresh brew he said to me:--
"You must forgive my giving my men Hades right before you, but they
deserved it, and know it, and under the circumstances I imagine they did
not mind taking it. I did not mean you to give them a party, you know.
Why, if the major had ridden up that hill--and he might have--and seen
that party inside your garden, I should have lost my commission and
those boys got the guardhouse. These men are on active service."
Then, while he drank his tea, he told me why he felt a certain
indulgence for them--these boys who were hurried away from England
without having a chance to take leave of their families, or even to warn
them that they were going.
"This is the first time that they have had a chance to talk to a woman
who speaks their tongue since they left England; I can't begrudge it to
them and they know it. But discipline is discipline, and if I had let
such a breach of it pass they would have no respect for me. They
understand. They had no business to put their guns out of their hands.
What would they have done if the detachment of Uhlans we are watching
for had dashed up that hill--as they might have?"
Before I could answer or remark on this startling speech there was a
tremendous explosion, which brought me to my feet, with the
inevitable,--
"What's that?"
He took a long pull at his tea before he replied quietly,--"Another
division across the Marne."
Then he went on as if there had been no interruption:--
"This Yorkshire regiment has had hard luck. Only one other regiment in
the Expedition has had worse. They have marched from the Belgian
frontier, and they have been in four big actions in the retreat--Mons,
Cambrai, Saint-Quentin, and La Fere. Saint-Quentin was pretty rough
luck. We went into the trenches a full regiment. We came out to
retreat again with four hundred men--and I left my younger brother
there."
I gasped; I could not find a word to say. He did not seem to feel it
necessary that I should. He simply winked his eyelids, stiffened his
stern mouth, and went right on; and I forgot all about the Uhlans:--
"At La Fere we lost our commissary on the field. It was burned, and
these lads have not had a decent feed since--that was three days ago. We
have passed through few towns since, and those were evacuated,--drummed
out and fruit from the orchards on the roadsides is about all they have
had--hardly good feed for a marching army in such hot weather. Besides,
we were moving pretty fast--but in order--to get across the Marne,
toward which we have been drawing the Germans, and in every one of these
battles we have been fighting with one man to their ten."
I asked him where the Germans were.
"Can't say," he replied.
"And the French?"
"No idea. We've not seen them--yet. We understood that we were to be
reinforced at Saint-Quentin by a French detachment at four o'clock.
They got there at eleven--the battle was over--and lost. But these boys
gave a wonderful account of themselves, and in spite of the disaster
retreated in perfect order."
Then he told me that at the last moment he ordered his company to lie
close in the trench and let the Germans come right up to them, and not
to budge until he ordered them to give them what they hate--the
bayonet. The Germans were within a few yards when a German automobile
carrying a machine gun bore down on them and discovered their position,
but the English sharpshooters picked off the five men the car carried
before they could fire a shot, and after that it was every man for
himself--what the French call "sauve qui peut."
The Uhlans came back to my mind, and it seemed to me a good time to ask
him what he was doing here. Oddly enough, in spite of the several
shocks I had had, and perhaps because of his manner, I was able to do it
as if it was the sort of tea-table conversation to which I had always
been accustomed.
"What are you doing here?" I said.
"Waiting for orders," he answered.
"And for Uhlans?"
"Oh," replied he, "if incidentally while we are sitting down here to
rest, we could rout out a detachment of German cavalry, which our
aeroplane tells us crossed the Marne ahead of us, we would like to.
Whether this is one of those flying squads they are so fond of sending
ahead, just to do a little terrorizing, or whether they escaped from the
battle of La Fere, we don't know. I fancy the latter, as they do not
seem to have done any harm or to have been too anxious to be seen."
I need not tell you that my mind was acting like lightning. I
remembered, in the pause, as I poured him another cup of tea, and pushed
the jam pot toward him, that Amelie had heard at Voisins last night that
there were horses in the woods near the canal; that they had been heard
neighing in the night; and that we had jumped to the conclusion that
there were English cavalry there. I mentioned this to the captain, but
for some reason it did not seem to make much impression on him; so I did
not insist, as there was something that seemed more important which I
had been getting up the courage to ask him. It had been on my lips all
day. I put it.
"Captain," I asked, "do you think there is any danger in my staying
here?"
He took a long drink before he answered:--
"Little lady, there is danger everywhere between Paris and the Channel.
Personally--since you have stayed until getting away will be
difficult--I do not really believe that there is any reason why you
should not stick it out. You may have a disagreeable time. But I
honestly believe you are running no real risk of having more than that.
At all events, I am going to do what I can to assure your personal
safety. As we understand it--no one really knows anything except the
orders given out--it is not intended that the Germans shall cross the
Marne here. But who knows? Anyway, if I move on, each division of the
Expeditionary Force that retreats to this hill will know that you are
here. If it is necessary, later, for you to leave, you will be notified
and precautions taken for your safety. You are not afraid?"
I could only tell him, "Not yet," but I could not help adding, "Of
course I am not so stupid as to suppose for a moment that you English
have retreated here to amuse yourselves, or that you have dragged your
artillery up the hill behind me just to exercise your horses or to give
your gunners a pretty promenade."
He threw back his head and laughed aloud for the first time, and I felt
better.
"Precautions do not always mean a battle, you know"; and as he rose to
his feet he called my attention to a hole in his coat, saying, "It was a
miracle that I came through Saint-Quentin with a whole skin. The
bullets simply rained about me. It was pouring--I had on a
mackintosh--which made me conspicuous as an officer, if my height had
not exposed me. Every German regiment carries a number of sharpshooters
whose business is to pick off the officers. However, it was evidently
not my hour."
As we walked out to the gate I asked him if there was anything else I
could do for him.
"Do you think," he replied, "that you could get me a couple of fresh
eggs at half-past seven and let me have a cold wash-up?"
"Well, rather," I answered, and he rode away.
As soon as he was gone one of the picket called from the road to know if
they could have "water and wash."
I told them of course they could--to come right in.
He said that they could not do that, but that if they could have water
at the gate--and I did not mind--they could wash up in relays in the
road. So Pere came and drew buckets and buckets of water, and you never
saw such a stripping and such a slopping, as they washed and shaved--and
with such dispatch. They had just got through, luckily, when, at about
half-past six, the captain rode hurriedly down the hill again. He
carried a slip of white paper in his hand, which he seemed intent on
deciphering.
As I met him at the gate he said:--
"Sorry I shall miss those eggs--I've orders to move east," and he began
to round up his men.
I foolishly asked him why. I felt as if I were losing a friend.
"Orders," he answered. Then he put the slip of paper into his pocket,
and leaning down he said:--
"Before I go I am going to ask you to let my corporal pull down your
flags. You may think it cowardly. I think it prudent. They can be
seen a long way. It is silly to wave a red flag at a bull. Any
needless display of bravado on your part would be equally foolish."
So the corporal climbed up and pulled down the big flags, and together
we marched them off to the stable. When I returned to the gate, where
the captain was waiting for the rest of the picket to arrive, I was
surprised to find my French caller of the morning standing there, with a
pretty blonde girl, whom she introduced as her sister-in-law. She
explained that they had started in the morning, but that their wagon had
been overloaded and broken down and they had had to return, and that her
mother was "glad of it." It was perfectly natural that she should ask me
to ask the "English officer if it was safe to stay." I repeated the
question. He looked down at them, asked if they were friends of mine.
I explained that they were neighbors and acquaintances only.
"Well," he said, "I can only repeat what I said to you this morning--I
think you are safe here. But for God's sake, don't give it to them as
coming from me. I can assure your personal safety, but I cannot take
the whole village on my conscience." I told him that I would not quote
him.
All this time he had been searching in a letter-case, and finally
selected an envelope from which he removed the letter, passing me the
empty cover.
"I want you," he said, "to write me a letter--that address will always
reach me. I shall be anxious to know how you came through, and every
one of these boys will be interested. You have given them the only
happy day they have had since they left home. As for me--if I live--I
shall some time come back to see you. Good-bye and good luck." And he
wheeled his horse and rode up the hill, his boys marching behind him;
and at the turn of the road they all looked back and I waved my hand,
and I don't mind telling you that I nodded to the French girls at the
gate and got into the house as quickly as I could--and wiped my eyes.
Then I cleared up the tea-mess. It was not until the house was in
order again that I put on my glasses and read the envelope that the
captain had given me:--
Capt. T. E. Simpson,
King's Own Yorkshire L. I. VIth Infantry Brigade,
15th Division, British Expeditionary Force.
And I put it carefully away in my address book until the time should
come for me to write and tell "how I came through"; the phrase did
disturb me a little.
I did not eat any supper. Food seemed to be the last thing I wanted. I
sat down in the study to read. It was about eight when I heard the gate
open. Looking out I saw a man in khaki, his gun on his shoulder,
marching up the path. I went to the door.
"Good-evening, ma'am," he said. "All right?"
I assured him that I was.
"I am the corporal of the guard," he added. "The commander's
compliments, and I was to report to you that your road was picketed for
the night and that all is well."
I thanked him, and he marched away, and took up his post at the gate,
and I knew that this was the commander's way of letting me know that
Captain Simpson had kept his word. I had just time while the corporal
stood at the door to see "Bedford" on his cap, so I knew that the new
regiment was from Bedfordshire.
I sat up awhile longer, trying to fix my mind on my book, trying not to
look round constantly at my pretty green interior, at all my books,
looking so ornamental against the walls of my study, at all the
portraits of the friends of my life of active service above the shelves,
and the old sixteenth-century Buddha, which Oda Neilson sent me on my
last birthday, looking so stoically down from his perch to remind me how
little all these things counted. I could not help remembering at the
end that my friends at Voulangis had gone--that they were at that very
moment on their way to Marseilles, that almost every one else I knew on
this side of the water was either at Havre waiting to sail, or in
London, or shut up in Holland or Denmark; that except for the friends I
had at the front I was alone with my beloved France and her Allies.
Through it all there ran a thought that made me laugh at last--how all
through August I had felt so outside of things, only suddenly to find it
right at my door. In the back of my mind--pushed back as hard as I
could--stood the question--what was to become of all this?