After dinner we went on a trip through the Citadel, that vast underground soldier-city with its miles of corridors and rooms enough to harbor a whole army, a little world deep underneath the earth. We saw the bakery which bakes bread not only for the whole garrison but for all the troops in the vicinity; the Foyer, a writing and recreation hall, named in honor of President Wilson; the movie theatre; and the hospital with its wards and operating room,—what a nightmare horror I thought to be sick in those damp and dimly-lighted subterranean caverns! But we were not allowed to see more than the outer door of the chapel which they say is sumptuous, since it is enriched by all the costly furnishings and precious images moved there for safety’s sake from the Cathedral. Nor were we shown the underground café where, I have been told, an unusually good brand of beer is sold.
From the Citadel, rumour has it, tunnels lead out to the circle of forts that form the defences of Verdun, but if you ask a Frenchman if this is so, he only looks wise and keeps mum.
Verdun, February 25.
I don’t believe there is another canteen quite like my canteen in the whole of France. It is a canteen for French civilians. The one-time inhabitants of Verdun and the devastated area beyond are allowed by the government, it seems, just twenty-four hours in which to visit their former homes, after which they must return as there is no food for them here and very little shelter. In return for many favours the French authorities asked the Y. to co-operate with them in running a sort of rest-room for these refugees; they supplying a detail, and we supplying the materials to make hot chocolate which is given away, and a secretary to take charge. The canteen is in the Collège Buvignier at the foot of the hill. There is a dortoir in the building also, in charge of the man who was once manager of the principal hotel in the city; two long halls full of cots with straw mattresses where the refugees may pass the night. My assignment to this canteen is only to be temporary.
The room where my canteen is must have once been quite beautiful, high-ceilinged with wainscot panelling below and embossed leather covering the walls above. Even now in its state of dingy disrepair, with half the panes in the tall arched windows replaced by dirty cloth, it keeps something of its old dignity and charm. Beyond the main room is another smaller one, connected by two doors, in which the detail lives and in which we make our chocolate.
When I took over the canteen from the man who had been in charge of it, it was absolutely bare except for four tables and some backless wooden benches. My first act on assuming charge was to clean house, my second was to persuade the detail to make the very watery chocolate richer. After that we proceeded to refurnish and adorn. We ran a frieze of war-pictures in color, taken from a child’s pictorial Histoire de la Guerre around the top of the wainscoting, hung French and American flags from the chandeliers, teased the French authorities into bringing us some nice upholstered armchairs for the old ladies to sit in, and, finally, put a little pot of primroses or snow-drops, dug with a broken tile from a ruined garden, in the centre of each table. Then a kind secretary bound for Bar-le-Duc was persuaded to go shopping for us and brought back an array of French magazines, hand-picked, and an assortment of toys to amuse the kiddies who must often wait here with their families between trains, though so far, it must be confessed, it is chiefly the detail who have been amused by them. And now I am wondering what there is to do next.
Besides the hot chocolate, we carry on a trade in bread, a huge sackfull of which is brought us fresh every day from the underground bakery on the back of a little round-faced poilu; and we do a brisk business in checking parcels, without checks. Yesterday a rabbit was left all day in our care. I was sorry for the poor beast cooped up in the little box and wanted to give it a drink of water, but the poilus insisted that this would be fatal. Whether this might possibly be a zoölogical fact, or is just part of the national prejudice against water, I can’t determine.
At first, remembering my difficulties with the French Army at Mauvages, I was a little apprehensive as to how my two poilus, Emil and Guillaume and I might get along. But though I am sure they think me the oddest creature in the world, and my presence here unconventional beyond words, yet their behaviour could not possibly be more courteous, considerate and deferential. They won’t even allow me to wash the chocolate cups.
“Mademoiselle will soil her hands!”
And they are forever telling me that I am working too hard. “But Mademoiselle will be fatigued!” Which is so absurd as to fairly exasperate me.