Everyman's Land

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

We knocked at the door of the hospice, the cottage hospital which is famous because of her, its head and heart; and she herself let us in, for at that instant she had been in the act of starting out. I recognized her at once from the photographs which were in every illustrated paper at the time when, for her magnificent bravery and presence of mind, she was named Chevalière of the Legion of Honour.

But with her first smile I saw that the pictures had done her crude injustice. They made of Sœur Julie an elderly woman in the dress of a nun; somewhat stout, rather large of feature. But the figure which met us in the narrow corridor had dignity and a noble strength. The smile of greeting lit deep eyes whose colour was that of brown topaz, and showed the kindly, humorous curves of a generous mouth. The flaring white headdress of the Order of Saint-Charles of Nancy framed a face so strong that I ceased to wonder how this woman had cowed a German horde; and it thrilled me to think that in this very doorway she had stood at bay, offering her black-robed body as a shield for the wounded soldiers and poor people she meant to save.

Even if we had not come from the Préfet, and with some of his family who were her admiring friends, I'm sure Sœur Julie would have welcomed the strangers. As it was she beamed with pleasure at the visit, and called a young nun to help place chairs for us all in the clean, bare reception room. By this time she must know that she is the heroine of Lorraine—her own Lorraine!—and that those who came to Gerbéviller come to see her; but she talked to us with the unself-consciousness of a child. It was only when she was begged to tell the tale of August 23, 1914, that she showed a faint sign of embarrassment. The blood flushed her brown face, and she hesitated how to begin, as if she would rather not begin at all, but once launched on the tide, she forgot everything except her story: she lived that time over again, and we lived it with her.

"What a day it was!" she sighed. "We knew what must happen, unless God willed to spare Gerbéviller by some miracle. Our town was in the German's way. Yet we prayed—we hoped. We hoped even after our army's defeat at Morhange. Then Lunéville was taken. Our turn was near. We heard how terrible were the Bavarians under their general, Clauss. Our soldiers—poor, brave boys!—fought every step of the way to hold them back. They fought like lions. But they were so few! The Germans came in a gray wave of men. Our wounded were brought here to the hospice, as many as we could take—and more! Often there were three hundred. But when there was no hope to save the town, quick, with haste at night, they got the wounded away—ambulance after ambulance, cart after cart: all but a few; nineteen grands blessés, who could not be moved. They were here in this room where we sit. But ah, if you had seen us—we sisters—helping the commandant as best we could! We made ourselves carpenters. We took wooden shutters and doors from their hinges for stretchers. We split the wood with axes. We did not remember to be tired. We tore up our linen, and linen which others brought us. We tied the wounded boys on to the shutters. They never groaned. Sometimes they smiled. Ah, it was we who wept, to see them jolting off in rough country wagons, going we knew not where, or to what fate! All night we worked, and at dawn there were none left—except those nineteen I told you of. And that was the morning of the 23rd of August, hot and heavy—a weight upon our hearts and heads.

"Not only the wounded, but our defenders had gone. The army was in retreat. We had fifty-seven chasseurs left, ordered to keep the enemy back for five hours. They did it for eleven! From dawn till twilight they held the bridge outside the town, and fought behind barriers they had flung up in haste. Boys they were, but of a courage! They knew they were to die to save their comrades. They asked no better than to die hard. And they fought so well, the Germans believed there were thousands. Not till our boys had nearly all fallen did the enemy break through and swarm into the town. That was down at the other end from us, below the hill, but soon we heard fearful sounds—screams and shoutings, shots and loud explosions. They were burning the place street by street with that method of theirs! They fired the houses with pastilles their chemists have invented, and with petrol. The air was thick with smoke. We shut our windows to save the wounded from coughing. Soon we might all die together, but we would keep our boys from new sufferings while we could!

"Then at last the hour struck for us. One of our sisters, who had run to look at the red sky to see how near the fire came, cried out that Germans were pouring up the hill—four officers on horseback heading a troop of soldiers. I knew what that meant. I went quickly to the door to meet them. My knees felt as if they had broken under my weight. My heart was a great, cold, dead thing within me. My mouth was dry as if I had lost myself for days in the desert. I am not a small woman, yet it seemed that I was no bigger than a mouse under the stare of those big men who leaped off their horses, and made as if to pass me at the door. But I did not let them pass. I knew I could stop them long enough at least to kill me and then the sisters, one by one, before they reached our wounded! We backed slowly before them into the hall, the sisters and I, to stand guard before this room.

"'You are hiding Frenchmen here—French soldiers!' a giant of a captain bawled at me. Beside him was a lieutenant even more tall. They had swords in their hands, and they both pointed their weapons at me.

"'We have nineteen soldiers desperately wounded,' I said. 'There are no other men here.'

"'You are lying!' shouted the captain. He thought he could frighten me with his roar like a lion: but he did not seem to me so noble a beast.

"'You may come in and see for yourselves that I speak the truth,' I said. And think what it was for me, a woman of Lorraine, to bid a German enter her house! I did not let those two pass by me into this room. I came in first. While the lieutenant stood threatening our boys in their beds that he would shoot if they moved, the captain went round, tearing off the sheets, looking for firearms. In his hand was a strange knife, like a dagger which he had worn in his belt. One of our soldiers, too weak to open his lips, looked at the German, with a pair of great dark eyes that spoke scorn; and that look maddened the man with a sudden fury.