“J’ai tine passion,” declared the old man with startling fervour; “j’ai une passion véritable de revoir le village de ma naissance!”
In all probability he was returning to nothing but a crumbled heap of stones.
“You are very brave,” I told him.
Ah but it was for them, the old, to set an example for the young! It was they who should lead the way! It was they who should rebuild France! His frail old body fairly shook with the strength of his emotion. What a strange, thrilling, tragic pilgrimage!
Verdun resembled nothing but a ruin mercifully wrapped in darkness as we passed through the gate and made our way up the hill. We had found, luckily, a guide who had a lantern; nowhere else in all the city was so much as a gleam of light to be seen. In places, as we passed, the shells of houses still stood, staring down with empty eyes at us, in other places there were nothing but rubble mounds with here and there a narrow jagged bit of wall or a naked chimney standing out like a lonely monolith.
Headquarters offices are at the Château on the summit of the hill close to the Cathedral, one of the few buildings left undamaged in this part of town, a rambling, ungainly, rather gloomy structure. The second story consists almost entirely of a series of great empty barren loft-like store-rooms. In one of these, known as the Ladies, Cold Storage, I have my habitation. Supposed to be a sort of one-night-stand dormitory for female tourists,—nurses chiefly,—who are touring the battle-fields, the Ladies, Cold Storage is a large dusty garret with grimy rough-plastered walls, without a window or as much as a crack to let in any light or air except for a few small slits in the roof where the rain leaks in. A stove, a long row of cots and a tin basin on a shelf surmounted by a broken piece of looking-glass are its only furnishings. However, the L. C. S. boasts one luxury, it is equipped with electric lights. This helps—when the current is turned on!—when it isn’t, we light a candle stub and stick it in an old milk can. The electricity is generated underground in the Citadel. When the Americans first came to Verdun some enterprising electricians tapped the wires and had forty lights working before the French knew anything about it. Upon discovery the French cut off the Americans, only to find shortly afterwards that another connection had been made. This absurd performance was repeated no less than seven times. After the seventh time the French gave up.
We were fairly frightened out of bed this morning by a most horrible hubbub,—a Klaxon gas-alarm which is used to call the guests to breakfast. Having heard it I am quite convinced that if Gabriel wishes to do the job efficiently on the last day, he will scrap his trumpet and take a Klaxon.
After breakfast we newcomers hurried out to get a glimpse of the town. There were plenty of others likewise occupied as Verdun is a veritable magnet for A. E. F. tourists. The Cathedral is closed to visitors but we happened upon two French officers who kindly took us through. The roof is badly damaged and the stained glass of the windows shattered to bits, but beyond that the Cathedral is comparatively unharmed. I was much embarrassed when the officers informed me that the sacrés pierres, the sacred stones from the altar, had been stolen and presumably sent as souvenirs to America. At first I pretended not to understand, but they took such pains to explain, finally taking me to the altar and showing me where the little marble slabs had been dug out, that I finally had to admit I understood. The two nurses who were with us were anxious to climb the clock-tower, but this, we found, was strictly défendu. All through the war, we learned afterwards, the clock in the tower had been kept going by the faithful verger who refused to leave his post, and what’s more, it had kept time. But a short while ago the clock had started “skipping.” A party of American boys had just visited the tower. Upon investigation it proved that one of the wheels was missing! Sometimes I think the French are very patient with us.
Everywhere we went we came upon German prisoners engaged in the most leisurely fashion in cleaning up. There are several thousands of them here and more to come. Verdun is to rise from her ruins and live once more. Yet she can never be in any sense the stately city that once she was; for while the business and poorer portions of the city below the hill are not irreparably damaged, the finer part with its stately mansions and exquisite specimens of mediæval architecture is wrecked beyond repair. The most serious obstacle in the way of making at least some small portions of the city habitable at present lies in the great difficulty of obtaining window-glass.
From the Cathedral we went to the Canteen-in-the-Convent. How the nuns would stare, I thought, if they could see their virgin precincts in possession of a mob of boys in khaki, white and black, interspersed with the blue-coated poilus! Across the back of the building runs a wide terrace, once worn by pious feet of patient sisters engaged in holy meditations. Here among the lounging boys stand life-sized carved and colored images of saints and angels. Their size of course prevents them from traveling to America as souvenirs, but even so they must stand witness to the irreverence of young America, for the Angel Gabriel is hideous in a German gas-mask!