On the Fringe of the Great Fight

by George Gallie Nasmith

There are many kinds of hotels in the little towns and villages of northern France, some good and some bad;—mostly good if you only want bread, cheese and beer, and very bad if you want anything else. Still, you do occasionally run across an hotel which is capable of providing a decent meal, though the rooms and general accommodation are, as a rule, exceedingly poor. Heat is a thing unknown. If you raise a row and demand a fire, they will provide it for sundry francs and centimes extra. In war time coal becomes more and more difficult to obtain, and the inveigling of a fire out of mine host becomes increasingly difficult.

The M—— Hotel was rather a pretentious hostelry. It occupied part of the City Hall or Hotel de Ville which faced the Grande Place. The Hotel de Ville is a rather good looking red brick building, three stories high, and is said to be over 200 years old. In the centre an arch way, protected by heavy iron gates, leads into an inner court, occupied chiefly by stables. To the right is the entrance to the police magistrate's office and court, and to the left is the entrance to our Hostelry.

A typical old Frenchman, with a snow-white drooping moustache and closely cropped white hair, runs the hotel with the aid of his rosy cheeked daughter and a couple of maids. The old man spends his time in dispensing wine and beer, looking after the maids, occasionally cooking a meal for a particular guest, buying the food, and playing billiards with the little groups of old cronies that foregather in the common room each evening. Like all Frenchmen, he had been a soldier in his time, and had never forgiven the Germans for 1870. His picture as a young man in uniform, hung in the dining-room of the hotel.

Moreover, he was a musician, and before the war had played the French horn in the town band. His banquet hall, which we were now using as a laboratory, had been the band room and the home of all band practices in the long winter months. How the old man did roll his eyes with ecstasy and raise his hands with unutterable joy as he listened for the first time to the wonderful mellow music of the British Grenadier Guards' band as it played in the bandstand in the square. Handel's largo, the overture to Tannhauser, and a fantasia on British airs,—each brought forth a different series of gestures. "Monsieur, I have not heard such fine music since I heard the Republican Guards' band at Paris; in fact, monsieur, this is finer—the tone is richer, rounder and more mellow. It is marvellous, Monsieur le Colonel, marvellous; it is entrancing; a-ha! heavenly!"

M—— Hotel in the evening was an interesting sight. Little tables were spread about upon the sawdust sprinkled floor, each table with two or four guests discussing the official communiques of the day, the flow of talk assisted by a bottle of red or white wine. M.X., the miller, at heart more or less of a pessimist invariably got into an argument with that fierce optimist, M.Y., the lumberman. Night after night they would argue as to the progress of the war; whether Germany was really short of food; whether there were really three million men in "Keetchenaire's" army; whether the country was infested with spies; or why Von Kluck's army turned back from Paris.

An Indian Concert.

Towards four o'clock, one afternoon, we noticed an unusual clearing up of the village square. Military policemen were ordering away motor cars, wagons, and lorries, while everything in the square was made spick and span. About four-thirty, Sikhs, Beloochis, Pathans, and Ghurkas began to stroll into the square and congregate in groups, shaking hands with acquaintances they had not met for some time, just like typical Frenchmen. Those who came later carried drums and bagpipes of the regulation kind. At five minutes to five the bandmaster made his appearance, and the band lined up while they tuned their chanters.

Sharp at five o'clock, with a punctuality that was remarkable, the band stepped out across the square to the tune of "The Cock of the North," played in perfect time and tune. At the far side of the square they wheeled about and back they came with ribbons flying and chests inflated, looking like real natives of the Scottish hills. It was the most perfect pipe playing I had ever heard. The French were delighted. As the strains died away in the wail of the chanters, a hearty round of applause brought smiles to the serious faces of the Indians, and away they went again to "Highland Laddie," followed by "The Campbells are Coming."

Then another band followed with performance on the Indian pipe which is something like a chanter, without the bag or drones. The effect was awful. To make a hit they attempted "La Marseillaise," and it was a hit. Had it been a farce it could not have been beaten—no two instruments were in tune and some of the notes of the scale were altogether missing, so that the most ghastly discords were sprung upon us. No wonder such instruments can lash the hillsmen into fury. They had us nearly fighting mad.