"Food for powder!"
At full speed the trains rolled on both lines day and night; the food for powder went by without ceasing.
Food for powder!
And yet the expression is not right. For the soul of every man was awake. At the call of war all men were ready to fight and to die; all shouted "victory," in the assurance that it would come to us.
In the village our confidence met some distrust. Mme. Tassin, who acts as housekeeper when we are away, tossed her grey head.
"I was young when I saw them for the first time in '70. What shall I do at my age if they come here now?"
Geneviève was filled with horror at the mere suggestion. In the farm near by Mme. Lantois expressed the very same unreasonable fears. "Do you think we shall have them here?" she asked a young lieutenant, who was as bitterly disgusted as we were.
Meanwhile our gunners were ready from head to foot, and their horses from mane to hoof. We heard the last exhortations of the Captain to his men, and the next day we got up at four o'clock in the morning to see them off. It was magnificent. The sun shone in triumph upon the martial train; the flower-covered cannon had a good-humoured air; the horses pawed the ground; and the gunners had not smiles enough to throw to us, nor caps enough wherewith to salute us.
Captain Vinchamps, before he took leave, introduced his horse. It was a "skittish" little mare, he thought, clever and sweet-tempered. Once more we wished him success, and once more hoped that the war would spare him and his men; and all, soldiers, officers, and horses, galloped off, and were soon hidden from our sight amid the poplar trees in the sun and the dust.
The last soldier had departed. The village was empty of men, and the women from sunrise to sunset were working in the fields. We led an uninteresting life. In fact we did not live in Morny, but in Belgium where our soldiers were fighting. Our overburdened minds looked forward passionately to the result of the first conflict. What was going to happen?