It is odd, remembering the new alignment of the nations, to see
erected in the public square a monument celebrating the victory of the
French over the English in 1793, a victory which had compelled the
British to raise the siege of Dunkirk.
South of Bergues there was no sign of war. The peasants rode along the road in their high, two-wheeled carts with bare iron hoops over the top, hoops over which canvas is spread in wet weather.
There were trees again; windmills with their great wings turning peacefully; walled gardens and wayside shrines; holly climbing over privet hedges; and rows of pollard willows, their early buds a reddish brown; and tall Lombardy poplars, yellow-green with spring.
The road stretched straight ahead, a silver line. Nothing could have been more peaceful, more unwar-like. Peasants trudged along with heavy milk cans hanging from wooden neck yokes, chickens flew squawking from the onslaught of the car. There were sheep here and there.
"It is forbidden to take or kill a sheep—except in self-defence!" said the officer.
And then suddenly we turned into a small town and came on hundreds of French omnibuses, requisitioned from all parts of France and painted a dingy grey.
Out of the town again. The road rose now to Cassel, with its three windmills in a row on the top of a hill. We drove under an arch of trees, their trunks covered with moss. On each side of the highway peasants were ploughing in the mud—old peasants, bent to the plough, or very young boys, who eyed us without curiosity.
Still south. But now there were motor ambulances and an occasional long line of motor lorries. At one place in a village we came on a great three-ton lorry, driven and manned by English Tommies. They knew no French and were completely lost in a foreign land. But they were beautifully calm. They sat on the driving seat and smoked pipes and derided each other, as in turn they struggled to make their difficulty known.
"Bailleul," said the Tommies over and over, but they pronounced it
"Berlue," and the villagers only laughed.
The officer in the car explained.