The village streets are strewn with sulphur from to-day's shells. A hayrick has been set on fire and a horse killed close to Madame Maillard's.
Varlet takes me to see this Madame Maillard. Arm in arm we pass along the main street. Right and left ruined and disembowelled houses alternate with buildings almost or wholly intact.
Poor village! Last September it was a pretty little market-town, like many another on the banks of the Aisne, where the houses have a style distinctively their own. The white stone doorways and flights of steps, the violet slate roofs of Champagne and the Ile-de-France, match the staircase gables of neighbouring Flanders. Now the bright, cheerful houses are dilapidated and shattered; the tax-collector's house is empty, so is the baker's. Nor has the church been spared; the recent cannonade has added to the former ruin and desolation.
The civilians, too, are away. We talk to those who have stayed, and daily make progress in the dialect of the place. We know that ce ch'tiot ila means "this little boy," as we have already discovered that parents and grandparents call themselves tayons and ratayons. Brave civilians! No one ever mentions them. Now, this isn't right. Not only have they seen the young ones leave for the front, not only do they live through the horrors of war, but many of them have relations in neighbouring villages occupied by the enemy. Scarcely any are left except women and old men. The latter have passed through 1870; they give their reasons for their present confidence in the result of the war and tell of the miseries of former days.
On the town hall square are drawn up the carriages of the regimental train. Opposite are two ruined hovels and a farm, the roof of which has fallen in, a yard strewn with debris, now the playground of dogs and cats, ducks and hens. Between two calcined pieces of wall stands Madame Maillard's little house. We knock at the door.
"Come in!"
We now find ourselves in one of the gayest corners of Bucy; a very select place, moreover, to which one can only gain admittance by introduction. Here Milliard the postman is the oracle, along with Henriot, his acolyte. Here lodges the train de combat, i.e. the conductors of the regimental carriages. These infantry, who ride on horseback all the same, form a separate corporation. Even their dress is different from that of other soldiers: leather jackets and spurs. Their names are Charlot, Petit-Louis, and Grand-Victor. Their functions take them to Soissons and bring them daily into contact with the rearguard service.
Varlet, as a friend, has requested permission to introduce me. His request has been backed by Milliard and Henriot.
"Bring him along, then," they said.