We run weeping after the tumbril. It seems sacrilege to take the Curé. Poor things! They have no seats, but are dexterously balancing themselves on the top of the Gendarmerie tin boxes. To the lay mind their attitude savours of the undignified. But in the good peasants’ eyes their Curé cannot be ridiculous....
A DISTURBED NIGHT
Monday.—It will be my turn next. The position is scarcely an enviable one. We seem so unprotected in this little lonely Belgian village between Liège, Namur, and the German frontier. Our few houses extend along the high road too; we have no cover. The Gendarmerie is next my bedroom window, its truculent-looking flag still floating out in the summer breeze. It acts as a red rag to a bull to every Uhlan who comes into the village. And the army, a great army, many army corps are passing by to-morrow.
Often and often when things have looked black for us, I have longed to suggest to the peasants that they should stow their danger-signal flag tidily away in a drawer. But there are some things one does not say. I am not sure, but I think, if I happened to have a Union Jack it would be up alongside....
It is midnight. We are in the usual inky darkness, since paraffin and candles have given out. A troop of soldiers ride up and hammer on the door. No answer. The street is lined with sleeping men; but these too make no sign. The soldiers are getting what sleep they can before their onslaught on Namur.
Without making a tour of inspection I am pretty sure Madame Job and family are in the fields, or the sheltering hooded camion. The Germans bang on the door again and cry in rather tipsy voices, “Bier, bier.”
I quietly prop a little furniture against the door and wait events.
They go away. At two in the morning another lot arrive. A half-hearted crew, or with insufficient weapons, for the stout, barred door refuses to give way under their stalwart blows.
Some Brandenburgers sally out of the Gendarmerie and ask in colloquial but expressive German, “Why the ... something they are making such a row.”
The intruders sulkily reply they want cognac, “and quickly too.”