The world seemed normal again as we passed through other towns unharmed and swept by the dark countryside, till a red light rose in our path and a sharp "Qui vive?" came out of the night as we slowed down. This was not the only sentry call from a French Territorial in front of a barricade.
At a second halt we found a chain as well as a barricade across the road. For a moment it seemed that even the suave parliamentarism of our statesman and the authority of our general and our passes could not convince one grizzled reservist, doing his duty for France at the rear whilst the young men were at the front, that we had any right to be going into Paris at that hour of the night. The password, which was "Paris," helped, and we felt it a most appropriate password as we came to the broad streets of the city that was safe.
There is a popular idea that Napoleon was a super-genius who won his battles single-handed. It is wrong. He had a lot of Frenchmen along to help. Much the same kind of Frenchmen live to-day. Not until they fought again would the world believe this. It seems that the excitable Gaul, whom some people thought would become demoralized in face of German organization, merely talks with his hands. In a great crisis he is cool, as he always was. I like the French for their democracy and humanity. I like them, too, for leaving their war to France and Marianne; for not dragging in God as do the Germans. For it is just possible that God is not in the fight. We don't know that He even approved of the war.
V
And Calais Waits
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 of 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 by main force, without any manuvre. From the cafés where the British journalists 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- Armentiéres line. The French divisions to the north were suffering no less heavily, and beyond them the Belgians were trying to hold the last strip of their land which remained 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 mechanically munched the dry bread given them by their parents.
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 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 "schipperkes" 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 they wore. Yet they were cheerful; this was the amazing thing. They moved about, laughing and chatting in groups. Perhaps this was the best way. Possibly 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.