In the evening a few of us went to the St. Martin to see if the old woman and her daughter had been able to fetch their property away. We observed that the windows, where tinned fruit, chocolate, cakes, soap, postcards, and other articles used to be exhibited, had been cleared completely. We entered and found one of the girls in tears:
"All gone—all gone—I show you—you come into de cellar—all de wine gone—bottles all, all broken. English soldiers come in de night and take everysing 'vay—ve nussing left—it's de soldiers in de camp over zair in de field—zey plenty drunk dis morning—ve lose everysing—ve poor now."
Besides the windows, the till and the shelves had been cleared, and empty drawers and boxes had been thrown on to the floor. We went down into the cellar. All the cases had been opened and the stone floor was littered with empty and broken bottles. The girl began to sob again when she saw the ruin that had been inflicted:
"All gone, all gone—ve poor now."
"Why don't you complain to the Town Major?" one of us suggested.
"Complain?—vat's de use complain?—de Town Major, he nice man, he kind to us, but he no find de soldiers dat come, and if he find zem he punish zem but ve get nussing. Vat's de use punish zem if ve get nussing? All gone, ve poor now—oh, dis var, dis var—dis de second time ve refugeess—ve lose eversing 1914, ve come here from Zandvoorde and ve start again—ve do business vis soldiers, soldiers plenty money, ve do goot business, and now ve refugeess again and ve novair to go. If de Shermans come, ve do business vis de Shermans—but de shells come first and ve all killed—ah, dis var, dis var! Vat's de use fighting? All for nussing! Var over, me plenty dance!"
We ascended the cellar stairs. The mother was in the main room, wiping her eyes. We said good-bye to her and her daughter, feeling ashamed of our uniforms, and walked out into the street.
A mass of French cavalry were galloping past. It was growing dark. The cannonade had become deafening. Over the town a few miles off there was a crimson glare in the sky.
A horde of civilians was thronging the main street of the village. Old men and women were carrying all that was left to them of their property on their backs. Others were pushing wheelbarrows heaped up with clothes and household utensils. Girls were carrying heavy bundles under their arms and dragging tired, tearful children along. White-faced, sorrowful mothers were carrying peevish babies. Great wagons, loaded with furniture and bedding, and whole families sitting on top, were drawn by lank and bony horses. A little cart, with a pallid, aged woman cowering inside, was drawn painfully along by a white-haired man. They passed by us in the gathering gloom, and there seemed to be no end to these straggling multitudes of ruined, homeless people who were wandering westwards to escape the disaster that threatened to engulf us all.
The eastern sky flickered with vivid gun-flashes and scintillated with brilliant shell-bursts. The night was full of rustling noises and sullen thunder-claps, while a more distant roaring and rumbling seemed to break against some invisible shore like the breakers of a stormy sea.