Ann Gladys Lloyd

“ A German officer is standing before the house opposite, pointing a revolver at M. Job’s head. He issues orders in a harsh voice.
As he turns away to address his men, M. Job leaps across the road like a hare, his little sun-dried face pale as death.
“Save yourselves, my children. They are going to shoot us all down and set fire to the village. We have only a moment to escape. Sauvez-vous, sauvez-vous.” ”

“ I sit inside that armoured car, balancing myself dexterously on the top of my suit-case and begin to speculate as to how long I have to live. The soldiers are clustered together at one end of the strong grey vehicle; I am mercifully alone. Supporting myself on the top of my box I peer over the sides and watch the advancing army as we pass. Mile after mile flies by and still we are confronted by that endless sea of faces. On either side of the road are wide devastated spaces where the troops have encamped the night before. ”

“ She does it well. No one would guess that her mother is in the burning village of Visé and the rest of their relations shut up in Liège. How hard it is for them to possess their souls in patience when loved ones are suffering so few—so very few miles away.
Like Madame Job they are thirsting for news. But unlike her they keep the longing to themselves. Madame Job has, I believe, a sneaking hope that Albert may turn up one day outside the little white-washed inn. I suspect she would rather have her beloved Albert a live coward than a dead hero. ”

“ WHAT THE UHLANS THINK
A furious fight is going on in the village street. Fists and tongues striving to outdo each other. Les Prussiens, of course. I think if the earth opened and swallowed us up we should at once attribute it to German atrocities! But this time the aubergiste is cuffing the picturesque poacher for something that gentleman has done.
“Brave garçon,” sneers a passer-by.
“Malain,” retorts the poacher fiercely.
The peasants fling themselves on the malcontents and proclaim a truce. They argue rightly that only fools quarrel in war-time. ”

“ A bored-looking Belgian is a man to be feared.... Soon one hears the steady hack-hack, followed by a swirl and crash as some huge fir or oak falls prone across the great white road. There is something about the sound which makes one’s blood run cold. It comes as a foretaste of death.
A car drives up with four busbied officers. The Belgian guides. The Commandant speaks to them a moment. They drive on. He re-enters the Gendarmerie, comes out a moment later, locks the door and casts a lingering, almost affectionate glance at the yellow, black and red flag floating proudly from the masthead. ”

“ I long for an earthquake to swallow us all up, so deadening becomes the effect of these continually marching troops. On they come, cavalry, infantry, artillery, baggage waggons, Red Cross ambulances, caissons, pontoons, on they come in a never-ending orderly procession. Every now and again we pass the still steaming field-kitchens, mounted in carts, each drawn by two horses, ready to supply the hot meal which every soldier expects and gets. The men are fully equipped and fresh-looking. They for the most part have not yet been shot over. At times a car filled with officers dashes past. ”

“ At breakfast I am informed that the Germans are only a day’s march distant. They have already crossed the frontier and are advancing on us. Bombarded Liège is safer than Manhay, situated on one of the high roads from the frontier. The blindest Teuton could not miss this short, straight line of white-washed houses.
I join the crowd of peasants standing in a cluster at the cross-roads. Everyone is busy advising, gesticulating, prophesying. Other peasants are pouring in from the neighbouring villages for directions and news. Any stranger at once forms the nucleus of an entranced group. ”

“ At first the soldiers scarcely detach themselves from the firwoods. Then they seem to be marching on us in one solid block.
Few civilians get the chance to see an army, alien or otherwise, marching down to battle. The sight is piteous, thrilling. The imaginative must visualise ahead so many rotting corpses instead of those lithe, strong men. Personality seems lacking in that endless procession which comes streaming down the road with faces grey as their dust-laden clothes, mechanical in their movements as so many clock-work figures. ”

“ He revives.
“Three hundred Prussians are at Vaux Chavannes,” gasps the messenger.
The peasants disperse as though scattered by a shell. The village idiot takes cover in the pig-sty. Germaine is dropped by an agitated and diminutive nurse and immediately begins to scream. She is forcibly dragged to shelter. A scuttling and jabbering ensues. One hears the swish of skirts, the quick tramp-tramp of heavy boots, the sound of creaking stairs. I drag the fainting man into the hotel, quickly close and bolt the door, prop him against the wall, and go to the open dining-room window. ”

“ Already the end of the high road where it turns to Malempré is piled high with trees. The Noah’s-ark firs on the highway to Bomale have come toppling down like ninepins. My thoughts turn to weapons. I never dream for [14] an instant but that the peasants will fight the common enemy from behind those bulwark barricades. It seems the only natural and proper thing to do. I know nothing of the duties of non-combatants.
A man from a neighbouring village drives up in his cart. He gets down and feeds his horse with hunks of black bread which he tears from the loaf. I feel ashamed not to be armed. ”

“ It is terrible to hear the cannon dealing out slaughter to your loved ones, to know that your houses, your food, your very lives are in hourly jeopardy, to be “in” the war and yet more ignorant of its events and trend than the people of India in all likelihood.
Yet the peasants never curse the enemy. That is the most wonderful thing. This very day I have seen a very poor villager give all the drink he had in his little house to some Uhlans whom he thought looked tired. ”

“ The audience listens entranced. The gallantry of these Belgian troops—peasants like themselves—their valour is almost past belief! The work-worn, tired, rough-hewn faces turn to meet each other transfigured into beauty by their mutual look of pride....
We cannot, dare not wait to hear it all. The Uhlans may be here at any moment. I climb into the high dog-cart. The dépêches are put under the seat, even under my feet. I sit on a heap of them.... So does my companion. They are for Vaux Chavannes, Grand-Mesnil, all the little villages around, extending to Aywaille, twenty kilomètres away. ”

“ Motor-cyclists are coming and going in the direction of Liège. Cars shoot through every few minutes at a break-neck speed carrying men in uniform. The Commandant, peaked hat and uniform complete, lolls at the door of the Gendarmerie. His horse is being walked up and down by a farmer’s boy.
He disappears into a back room to answer the telephone, but when he returns he does not impart his news to the gaping crowd. The little vicinal train puffs noisily down the street from its shed at the end of the village. The peasants of the 13th and 14th classes, called up to-day, climb in. ”

“ There is a panic-stricken cry in the village. The worst has happened. The beloved Curés are here, jogging along in a little armoured tumbril such as those in which one pictured folk passing bravely to the guillotine in revolution time of old. They suffer [93] no indignity of bound hands or bandaged limbs. The swarming lines of troops remove all need for that.
A squad of soldiers march stolidly behind. Through the forest of notched bayonets one catches a glimpse of weeping women. There are other ways of fighting than with swords. ”

“ I say.
“I tell you they fight—not like men but—comme les démons. They don’t ride up as the Uhlans do. They just ‘appear’ like lightning or earthquake or any other phenomenon and then—phew—le déluge.”
“Every German who comes in here says that the Belgians have cut off the ears and gouged out the eyes of their wounded before Liège,” I say. “We on our side are horrified at the tale of German atrocities. Each time a German enters this village we feel that the tragedy of Visé may be enacted over again.”
The Tax-collector shrugs his shoulders as he fingers a cigarette. ”

“ I climb with some awkwardness over the high sides of an armoured car which is waiting in readiness with its soldier chauffeur some little distance up the street. My escort get in and take their seats. The infantry halting by the side of the road are almost falling over themselves in their excitement to see a spy, a real spy. We are off at a speed which would set a London policeman’s hair on end, in a wild rush into the unknown. ”

“ They carry their most cherished possessions in a square cotton sack-bag of enormous check design slung from their shoulders. In their hands are little parcels or perhaps a straw basket packed with a medley of quaint treasures. Small, sturdy, brown-faced children run at their heels.
The peasants visualise mentally the awful atrocities at Visé and tremble at the knowledge that many men have been shot in the surrounding countryside. They say to themselves, “What happens there will happen here to-morrow.” They are afraid. ”

“ The train starts. Our first-class compartment is as full as before, but instead of the beating sun, a blessed coolness has come to us with the darkness. My German friend meets her mother at Wesel. They all implore me to stay the night with them ... as many nights as I like. I am touched but must get on. I may yet be stopped on the frontier. Two soldiers, bayonets fixed, descend on me and demand papers. For the moment I have mislaid them. A crowd collects. Spy-baiting is always fun.
There is decided depression when I produce my passport and the Commandant’s papers. ”

“ The curtains are drawn and the doors locked at the red house opposite. The old maids of Manhay are suspected of planning a similar flight or their pig is very out-of-hand. He has been caught executing weird manœuvres in the street village, including the charging of ten tired Uhlans who coldly rebuffed him at the point of the lance.
Stragglers have come in from the frontier on their way from here to nowhere. They have the weary, listless air of people who have lost all interest in their lives. ”

“ The desertion of the little village street and the scuttling of agonised peasants into their houses. The banging and locking of doors, the sudden silence as they scatter in the stable ... cellar ... fields. I can see it now.... I shall see it always.
One peasant is not fortunate enough to escape. A Uhlan with an over-developed (Teuton) sense of humour, pricks him in the fleshy part of the shoulder with the point of the lance. Having secured a good hold, the German gallops up and down the village, driving the unlucky man before him at a furious speed. ”

“ We pull up and he gives an order to some soldiers near. Men are being told off to guard the aeroplane. Spy mania seems rampant. Perhaps they think I have the evil eye!
For seventy miles we drive on, now crawling to [110] allow some soldier’s frightened horse to get out of our way, now spinning along at a pace that makes me dance about like a parched pea in the interior of that steel-sided vehicle. During all that long, tortuous drive we pass troops. I become obsessed with faces, jeering, smiling. ”

“ Early morning and late at night is the time when we have the Uhlans mostly with us. It is nothing for them to call at 6 a.m. for breakfast, and they arrive in boisterous spirits (when they have suffered no losses) and call for beer at night.
They seem to have an extraordinary love for [48] music—or noise. They do not know in the least what they are going to war about, but most of them ask for a piano. The wheezy hotel gramophone affords them sheer delight. They must make music to-day if they die to-morrow. ”

“ The sheep-and-goats division of the sexes appears to obtain in the Ardennes. The women’s side is over-crowded. We could hang out “standing room only” and be merely truthful. The men’s scarcely less so. All the women are as scrupulously neat in their Sunday silk blouses and flower-trimmed hats as though they had never heard of such a thing as war. One or two of the black-bonneted old peasants are making their rosaries damp with tears. ”

“ As we near the beautiful avenue of fir trees which connects the Bomale road with Manhay, a peasant scout rushes out to warn us that Uhlans are ahead. We have just time to escape into a little lane.
More peasants come running up presently to tell us the road is clear. There is always the danger of being covered by field-glasses from some wooded hill, with its sequence of surprise attack, so we jog slowly along and drive into the yard instead of drawing up at the post office. ”

“ The Germans, though brave, seem inferior to the French in their scouting methods. Time and again small French patrols would cut them off, exercising superior finesse. One day in a skirmish outside the village, however, the Uhlans beat the French. An officer was triumphantly borne away prisoner to Werboumont. How thrilled we were at the sight of the culotte rouge. If there had only been more of them and free!
No one speaks of the men in skirts any more. The continuous stream of trains that was carrying the Highlanders into Liège have gone the way of all myths. ”