“You hate to see him go?” I asked.
“It is for France!” she answered.
We had cakes and tea and a merrier—at least, a more heartfelt—party than at any mayor’s reception in time of peace. Everybody talked. For the French do know how to talk, when they have not turned grim, silent soldiers. Foreigners say we do. Maybe it is a democratic weakness. I heard story on story of the German occupation, and how the mayor was put in jail and held as hostage, and what a German general said to him when he was brought in as a prisoner to be interrogated in his own house, which the general occupied as headquarters.
Among the guests was the wife of a French general in her Red Cross cap. She might see her husband once a week by meeting him on the road between the city and the front. He could not afford to be any farther from his post, lest the Germans spring a surprise. The extent of the information which he gave her was that all went well for France. Father Joffre plays no favourites in his discipline.
Happy, happy Lorraine in the midst of its ruins! Happy because her adored tricolour floats over those ruins.
XIV
A ROAD OF WAR I KNOW
Victoria Station—The “tenth man”—Leavetaking—Roar of London—British habits—Everywhere khaki—System at the French port—The correspondents’ home—Strict censorship—The one link with the reading public—Necessity for censorship—Freedom of the press—“Jig-saw” intelligence experts—The run of the trenches—Exchange of slang—Organisation of General Headquarters—A business institution—A colossal dynamo.
Other armies go to war across the land, but the British go across the sea. They take the Channel ferry in order to reach the front. Theirs is the home road of war to me; the road of my affections, where men speak my mother tongue. It begins on the platform at Victoria Station, with the khaki of officers and men returning from leave, relieved by the warmer colours of women who have come to say good-bye to those they love. In five hours from the time of starting one may be across that ribbon of salt water, which means much in isolation and little in distance, and in the trenches.