"You wouldn't hurt the feelings of the saviours of France? I'm going to make us both up! And there's no time to waste. They've given us fifteen minutes' grace before lunch. For the honour of womanhood we mustn't be late!"
I sat her down in the only chair. I dusted her pure little face with pearl-powder and the faintest soupçon of rouge. I rubbed on her sweet lips just the suspicion of pink, liked by an elderly grande dame française, who has not yet "abdicated." I then made myself up more seriously: a blue shadow on the lids, a raven touch on the lashes; a flick of the hare's-foot under my eyes and on my ear-tips: an extra coat of pink and a brilliant (most injurious!) varnish on the nails. Then, with a dash of Rose Ambrée for my companion's blouse and Nuits d'Orient for mine, we sallied forth scented like a harem, to do honour to our hosts.
Luncheon was in a vast cavern of a vaulted banqueting-hall, in the deepest heart of that citadel, where for eleven years Napoleon kept his weary English prisoners. Electric lights showed us a table adorned with fresh flowers (where they'd come from was a miracle, but soon we were to see other miracles still more miraculous), French, British, and American flags, and pyramids of fruit. The Rose Ambrée and Nuits d'Orient filled the whole vast salle, and pleased the officers, I was sure. They bowed and smiled and paid us compliments, their many medals glittered in the light, and their uniforms were resplendent against the cold background of the walls. I wished that, instead of one girl, I had been a dozen! But I did my best and so did Mother Beckett, who brightened into a charming second youth, the youth of a happy mother surrounded by a band of sons.
The lumps that had been in our throats had to be choked sternly down, for not to do justice to that meal would be worse than leaving the rouge and powder boxes unopened! The menu need not have put a palace to shame. In the citadel of Verdun it seemed as if it must have been evolved by rubbing Aladdin's lamp, and I said so as I read it over:
Huîtres d'Ostende
Bisque d'Écrevisses
Sanglier rôti
Purée de Pommes de Terre
Soufflée de Chocolat
Fruits
Bonbons
"Oh, we've never been hungry at Verdun, even when things were at their liveliest," said the officer sitting next to me. "Providence provided for us in a strange way. I will tell you how. Before the civil population went away, or expected to go, there was talk of a long siege. The shopkeepers thought they would be intelligent and sent to Paris for all sorts of food. Oh, not only the grocers and butchers! Everyone. You would have laughed to see the jewellers showing hams in their windows instead of diamonds and pearls and gold purses, and the piles of preserved meat and fruit tins at the perfumers! The confectioners ordered stores of sugar and the wine merchants restocked their cellars. Then things began to happen. Houses were bombed, and people hustled out in a hurry. You have seen some of those houses! The place was getting too hot; and the order came for evacuation. Not much could be taken away. Transport was difficult in those days! All the good food had to be left behind, and we thought it would be a pity to waste it. Our chief bought the lot at a reasonable price—merchants were thankful to sell. So you see we did not need Aladdin's lamp."
"I don't quite see!" I confessed. "Because, that's a long time ago, and these oysters of Ostende——"
"Never saw Ostende!" he laughed. "They are a big bluff! We always have them when"—he bowed—"we entertain distinguished guests. The Germans used to print in their papers that we at Verdun could not hold out long, because we were eating rats. So we took to cutting a dash with our menus. We do not go into particulars and say that our oysters have kept themselves fresh in tins!"
"But the wild boar?" I persisted. "Does one tin wild boar?"
"One does not! One goes out and shoots it. Ma foi, it's a good adventure when the German guns are not asleep! The fruit? Ah, that is easy! It comes as the air we breathe. And for our bonbons, the famous sugared almonds of Verdun were not all destroyed when the factory blew up."