Comforted by my fibs, she goes back to cook the dinner over the black oven. The oven and Madame are indivisible. I always think of them together.
I sew on. Suddenly steps are heard approaching from the direction of Vaux Chavannes. They cease. Something is worming its way with a curious brushing noise round that piled-up barrier of trees. “It” turns the corner into the Manhay Street. A peasant is running towards me full tilt. His face is scarlet, his mouth open with the tongue sagging over the lips. He rolls from side to side as if drunken; reaching me he throws up his hands.
“Les Prussiens, les Prussiens!” he shouts, and falls on his face as though possessed.
We bring him water, we fan him. 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.
Manhay might stand as a model for “The Deserted Village.” The inn is silent as the grave, the family of Job-Lepouse is doubtless in the fields. With me curiosity overrides fear. Even if it entails certain death I must see the Uhlans come. There is a sharp clitter-clatter of horses’ hoofs along the Vaux Chavannes road. It stops abruptly at the barricade. I hear a volley of very German curses, the crash-crash of weapons and then a mutilated bicycle comes hurtling through the air. I hear the cry of a man in pain. Some poor devil has been caught....
The Uhlans are in our street. They mass by the Gendarmerie, glare fiercely round. They have learned the feeling of the countryside in those barred tree-trunks which have crossed their path. They suspect a plot and are keen to fight. Charging down the road they come, lance out, heads erect, the sun glinting a thousand sparks from the rim of their metal helmets where it is left unprotected by the light cloth shield. They are not quite so smart as when parading last before their adoring women-kind. Their horses’ flanks are streaming, their uniforms dusty. “What splendid men they are!” is my first impression. “This is just like comic opera,” is my second. But when, at closer range, my eyes meet those long, sharp lances and that Teuton glare, I confess my third is funk!
I shall never forget that first moment of invasion. The forest of lances, the grey steel of pointed revolvers, sobbing women and frightened children. 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.