Scarcely any Uhlans have passed through to-day. Those who did were well behaved. This fact and the Red Cross flag have combined to make us quite jovial. The skittle alley is in use again. A group of villagers is gathered on the terrasse telling war-tales which would make our English fishermen green with envy.
One tale no one tells, however, out of respect to Madame Job. That is the tale of the Liège forts. We are all under a solemn pledge to believe that they are still intact. We know better. Anyone would know better after the awful cannonade of the last few days. But in our common humanity we cannot bear that Madame Job should know before she must, that her Albert “in-the-forts-there-below” is dead, safe though she thought him in those forts, “the-forts-which-are-so-strong.”...
ON THE ROAD
The village is parched for news. Only the black, yellow and red flag floating majestically above the Gendarmerie wall and the dull boom-boom of the cannon which, night and day, still comes from the direction of Liège, remind us that we are in Belgium, an integral part of that gallant little land. We have been without letters and papers for a week. We know nothing. Scarcely a living soul dares to find his way along the Uhlan-infested roads.
The engines of the little vicinal train are still packed away in their sheds in tidy rows. The ticket office is deserted. The workmen sit quietly at home, watching the starvation ghoul tread nearer day by day. The two-horsed malle-postes which feed the surrounding villages with letters from our central Manhay office have ceased running.
We are athirst for truth. Most would give all they possess (it is not worth much!) for just one word of encouragement about the campaign. 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. He refused payment with indignation. It was a gift.
We are all suffering from Prussian eye. We see Uhlans everywhere. Behind the hedges, under the shade of the trees, popping out of cottage doors, springing Jack-in-the-box-like from beneath a bridge. We dream Uhlan, we talk Uhlan, we taste Uhlan. I think a fine should be inflicted on any villager who mentions the hated word more than once in twenty-four hours.
A peasant deserter has been discovered in an adjacent village. He ought to have joined the 13th Classe by rights when it was called up. Poor fellow! He has a wife and three young delicate children and is, I fancy, none too strong himself. What torture to remain there in disgrace among the old men and young boys. And the penalty for him at the end is death....
Heroic M. le Directeur and his wife. I often think of them in their little country house near by. The vicinal railway which has opened up this exquisite corner of the world is due to his initiative. The peasants look to him as to a father.