Lieutenant A. came in from the little town of Pierrefond which lies between Conflans and Verdun yesterday.
“They have nothing to eat there,” he told me, “but the weeds they dig up in the fields for salade and the frogs they catch in the marshes. When the days are cold the frogs bury themselves so deep in the mud that they can’t be caught. There is one old gentleman who told me today that he had existed for weeks entirely on a diet of turnips. They come to me and beg pitifully for a bite of something from the mess-kitchen, but I don’t dare let them have it, as that would be, of course, strictly against regulations.”
I thought of those bushels of beans in the store-house. It was taking a chance of course, because after all it was government property and nothing else, but I told the Lieutenant that if he was willing to run the risk, I was; then I put it up to the Chief.
This morning the Lieutenant came in with a flivver. We drove over to the store-house and loaded it up with army beans, issue coffee, sugar, rice, onions, potatoes and soap. Then we filled a special sack with canned soup, “gold fish,” corn meal, canned tomatoes and corn syrup for the old gentleman who had lived on turnips. I felt he had a special claim on our sympathy.
We reached Pierrefond after a long drive in a stinging rain. It was a quaint pathetic village with a pretty little church whose tower had been sliced off as neatly as by a knife. Was it a German or a French shell which had done it, I wondered. We drew up in front of the Mayor’s house. He came out to greet us, showed me a list of the seventy-three inhabitants of the town; men, women and infants in arms. All the supplies were to be duly weighed and measured and distributed, so much per capita. While they were unloading the flivver we stopped in at Madame C.’s for coffee and compliments, and to dry out by her hospitable fire. Everyone made pretty speeches, of course, and Madame bestowed on me a delectable bouquet of wall-flowers and daffodils. Poor things! It’s little enough one can do for them. This will keep the wolf from the door for a short while perhaps, but after that, what then?
Pierrefond, like Conflans, was occupied by the Germans for four years. Now there is a young half-German population growing up, even as many as three to one family. The villagers accept the situation with tolerant humour; “Souvenirs Boches,” they call the children.
As for the rest of the rations, I made jam sandwiches with the bread and bestowed them together with hot chocolate on a hungry leave train. What to do with the “Charlie Horse,” as the boys call the canned roast beef, was a puzzle. Finally I made a paste of it mixed with bread crumbs, tomato soup, a few weenies and some ham scraps, pickles, parsley, onion and an egg,—we had six assistants in the kitchen and each added an ingredient,—put it between slices of bread and christened the result “Liberty Sandwiches. Guaranteed to contain neither Gold Fish nor Corn Willy.” The boys ate and wondered and came back for more.
Conflans, March 30.
In our back yard a detail of German prisoners is busy cleaning up; already they have made quite a transformation. Madame must have a garden. I wonder, as I watch them, what their state of mind may be; their phlegmatic faces give no hint. Did some of these very ones, perhaps, make merry in this self same café, only six months ago, when they were conquerors?
Madame tells me how, when the German officers were living here at the hotel, they ate off priceless old French plates, which, apparently quite ignorant of their value, they had carried off as loot. Madame, coveting these treasures, tried to arrange an exchange with the mess orderly, offering a number of modern dishes in return for one antique; but the mess orderly, fearing that some officer might notice the substitution, hesitated and before they could come to an agreement the precious plates, with the rough handling accorded them, had all been broken to bits.