The ten "Tommies" were now in comfortable quarters; but how to feed them was a difficult question. She gave them her own food, but that was not enough. Then she went to and fro amongst her friends and relations, begging a piece of bread here and some vegetables there. When the Germans saw her with a heavily-loaded basket they were suspicious, and asked her what she was going to do with the food. "It is for your wounded in the chapel," she said, and their suspicions were allayed. She appointed herself cook for the Germans, and was thus able to pick up all sorts of broken victuals for her friends on the top floor. British soldiers, as you know, are very fond of tobacco, and the girl was anxious to provide them with something to smoke. The Germans had made a rule that no one was to buy more than two sous' worth of tobacco at a time. This made her task very hard, but it did not daunt her. She got together some boy friends, and sent them to buy small quantities of tobacco at various shops each day. In this way the "Tommies" on the top floor were able to enjoy their pipes while they remained in hiding.
A hundred times a day they were in danger of being discovered by the Germans. The clever girl knew this, so she provided them with a rope, which they hung down through trap doors to the ground floor. She advised them to practise escape drill, so that they might get away if the Germans discovered them. This they did, and were soon quite expert. "Just imagine!" said the girl when she told the story: "my Englishmen after a few days were able to strap their haversacks and all slip down the rope noiselessly in less than five minutes."
Happily the "Tommies" were never discovered, and there was no need for them to use their rope as a means of escape. Some time afterwards the Germans were obliged to leave the town, and the British soldiers were able to reach their own lines in safety. Before they departed they gave the girl their names and addresses, and begged her to come to England when the war was over, so that they might repay her for all her kindness. The French paper which reports the story says that one of the ten was a nobleman, a relative of King George, and that his name was—Lord Smith! Can't you imagine the merry face of the rogue who gave the girl this astounding piece of information?
I have already told you that every French boy must be a soldier when he is twenty years of age. Many of the French boys who were in their teens when the war broke out were very keen to shoulder a rifle and march against the enemy. When the Germans drew near to Paris, a boy named André, who was only twelve years of age, felt that he must do something to defend his country. One day he disappeared, leaving behind him the following letter:—
"My dear Father and Mother,—I am starting for the war. Don't worry about me. I have my savings-bank money.—Your loving son,
"André."
A fortnight passed, and the anxious parents heard nothing of their boy. Then one morning he reappeared, very hardy and sunburnt but very sorrowful, and gave this account of his adventures. He had travelled many long miles before he reached a regiment of the army. He told the men he had come to help them. They laughed at him, but they had not the heart to send him away. So he had marched with them, shared their rations, and slept in their bivouacs or billets at night. At last the colonel noticed him, and made him give an account of himself. The upshot was, that he was sent home to wait until he was some years older and could join the army in the proper way.
Now I must tell you some British stories. Lance-Corporal Nolan of the Scots Greys, who formed one of a reconnoitring party, was preparing to engage a German patrol when a scout came up to say that a whole division of the enemy was at hand. The Greys attacked the patrol; but our hero had his horse shot under him, and he received a bullet in the right arm. A sergeant gave him a lift on his horse, and together they tried to gallop into safety. As they dashed on through the streets of a village, the Germans fired at them from the windows, killing the horse and wounding the sergeant. Both men were captured, and the Germans stripped them of everything but their trousers and shirts. One man snatched from Nolan the revolver which he had taken from a German officer, and was about to rob him of his shirt, when the very German officer from whom he had taken the revolver appeared, and said, "You are the man who took my revolver. Let me have it back instantly." Nolan replied, "I haven't got it. One of your own men has taken it." "Then come with me," said the officer, "and find the man who took it, and I will have him shot." "I went round with him," said Nolan, "as a matter of form; but I was not having any. Even if I had found the chap who had taken the revolver, I should not have peached on him, as I knew what his fate would have been." Nolan was afterwards taken to hospital, and was left behind when the Germans were driven off by a British cavalry brigade. Finally his comrades took him back to his own lines.