To the traveller, Calais had been the symbol of the shortest route from London to Paris, the shortest spell of torment in crossing the British Channel. It was a point where one felt infinite relief or sad physical anticipations. In the last days of November Calais became the symbol of a struggle for world power. The British and the French were fighting to hold Calais; the Germans to get it. In Calais Germany would have her foot on the Atlantic coast. She could look across only twenty-two miles of water to the chalk cliffs at Dover. She would be as near her rival as twice the length of Manhattan Island; within the range of a modern gun; within an hour by steamer and twenty minutes by aeroplane.
The long battle-front from Switzerland to the North Sea had been established. There was no getting around the Allied flank; there had ceased to be a flank. To win Calais, Germany must crush through without any manœuvre by main force. From the cafés where the British newspaper men gathered England received its news, which they gleaned from refugees and stragglers and passing officers. They wrote something every day, for England must have something about that dizzy head-on wrestle in the mud, that writhing line of changing positions, of new trenches rising behind the old destroyed by German artillery. The British were fighting with their last reserves on the Ypres-Armentieres line. The French divisions to the south were suffering no less heavily, and beyond them the Belgians were trying to hold the last strip of their land under Belgian sovereignty. Cordons of guards which kept back the observer from the struggle could not keep back the truth. Something ominous was in the air.
It was worth while being in that old town as it waited on the issue in the late October rains. Its fishermen crept out in the mornings from the shelter of its quays, where refugees gathered in crowds hoping to get away by steamer. Like lost souls, carrying all the possessions they could on their backs, these refugees. There was numbness in their movements and their faces were blank—the paralysis of brain from sudden disaster. The children did not cry, but munched the dry bread which their parents gave them mechanically.
The newspaper men said that “refugee stuff” was already stale; eviction and misery were stale. Was Calais to be saved? That was the only question. If the Germans came, one thought that Madame at the hotel would still be at her desk, unruffled, businesslike, and she would still serve an excellent salad for déjeuner; the fishermen would still go out to sea for their daily catch.
What was going to happen? What might not happen? It was human helplessness to the last degree for all behind the wrestlers. Fate was in the battle-line. There could be no resisting that fate. If the Germans came, they came. Belgian staff officers with their high-crowned, gilt-braided caps went flying by in their cars. There always seemed a great many Belgian staff officers back of the Belgian army in the restaurants and cafés. Habit is strong, even in war. They did not often miss their déjeuners. On the Dixmude line all that remained of the active Belgian Army was in a death struggle in the rain and mud. To these shipperkes, honour without stint, as to their gallant king.
Slightly wounded Belgians and Belgian stragglers roamed the streets of Calais. Some had a few belongings wrapped up in handkerchiefs. Others had only the clothes on their backs. Yet they were cheerful; this was the amazing thing. They moved about, laughing and chatting in groups. Perhaps this was the best way. Possibly the relief at being out of the hell at the front was the only emotion they could feel. But their cheerfulness was none the less a dash of sunlight for Calais.
The French were grim. They were still polite; they went on with their work. No unwounded French soldiers were to be seen, except the old Territorials guarding the railroad and the highways. The military organisation of France, which knew what war meant and had expected war, had drawn every man to his place and held him there with the inexorable hand of military and racial discipline. Calais had never considered caring for wounded, and the wounded poured in. I saw an automobile with a wounded man stop at a crowded corner, in the midst of refugees and soldiers; a doctor was leaning over him, and he died while the car waited.
But the newspaper men were saying that stories of wounded men were likewise stale. So they were, for Europe was red with wounded. Train after train brought in its load from the front, and Calais tried to care for them. At least, it had buildings which would give shelter from the rain. On the floor of a railroad freight shed the wounded lay in long rows, with just enough space between them to make an alley. Those in the row against one of the walls were German prisoners. Their green uniforms melted into the stone of the wall and did not show the mud stains. Two slightly wounded had their heads together whispering. They were helplessly tired, though not as tired as most of the others, those two stalwart young men; but they seemed to be relieved, almost happy. It did not matter what happened to them, now, so long as they could rest.
Next to them a German was dying, and others badly hit were glassy-eyed in their fatigue and exhaustion. This was the word, exhaustion, for all the wounded. They had not the strength for passion or emotion. The fuel for those fires was in ashes. All they wanted in this world was to lie quiet; and some fell asleep not knowing or caring probably whether they were in Germany or in France. In the other rows, in contrast with this chameleon, baffling green, were the red trousers of the French and the dark blue of the Belgian uniforms, sharing the democracy of exhaustion with their foe.
A misty rain was falling. In a bright spot of light through a window one by one the wounded were being lifted up on to a seat, if they were not too badly hit, and onto an operating-table if they were very badly hit. A doctor and a sturdy Frenchwoman of about thirty, in spotless white, were in charge. Another woman undid the first-aid bandage and others applied a spray. No time was lost; there were too many wounded to care for. The thing must be done as rapidly as possible before another train-load came in. If these attendants were tired, they did not know it any more than the wounded had realised their fatigue in the passion of battle. The improvised arrangement to meet an emergency had an appeal which more elaborate arrangements of organisation which I had seen lacked. It made war a little more red; humanity a little more human and kind and helpless under the scourge which it had brought on itself.