The colours of many flags fluttered upon the gables of the Place d’Armes, and the balconies were draped with the Tricolour, the Union Jack, and the Stars and Stripes. Old citizens wore tall hats saved up for this day, and girls had taken their lace from hiding-places where the Germans had not found it, and wore it round their necks and wrists for the honour of this day. Old women in black bonnets sat in the centre of window-places and clapped their hands—their wrinkled, hard-working old hands—to every British soldier who passed, and thousands were passing. Nobody heard a word of the speeches spoken from the Town Hall steps, the tribute of the councillors of Valenciennes to the glory of the troops who had rescued their people from servitude under a ruthless enemy, nor the answer of Sir Henry Horne, the Army Commander, expressing the pride of his soldiers in the rescue of that fair old city, and their admiration for the courage of its people. Every word was overwhelmed by cheering. Then the pipers of a Highland division, whose fighting I had recorded through their years of heroic endurance, played a march tune, and the music of those pipes was loud in the square of Valenciennes and in the hearts of its people. The troops marched past, and thousands of bayonets shone above their steel helmets....
XVI
I was in Mons on the day of Armistice, and on the roads outside when I heard the news that the Germans had surrendered to all our terms, and that the “Cease Fire” would sound at eleven o’clock. It was a misty morning, with sunlight glinting through the mist and sparkling in the coppery leaves of autumn trees. There was no heavy bombardment in progress round Mons—only now and then the sullen bark of a gun. The roads were crowded with the usual transport of war—endless columns of motor-lorries and horse-wagons, and mule-teams, crawling slowly forward, and infantry battalions trudging alongside, with their heavy packs. I stared into the faces of the marching men, expecting to see joy in their eyes, wondering why they were not singing—because to-day the guns would be silent and the fighting finished. Their packs weighed heavy. The mud from passing lorries splashed them with great gobs of filth. Under their steel hats the sweat ran down. They looked dead-beat, and marched in a grim line of tired men. But I noticed that the transport wagons were decorated with small flags, and these bits of fluttering colour were stuck into the harness of gun-horses and mules. From the other way came another tide of traffic—crowds of civilians, who were middle-aged men and boys, and here and there women pushing hand-carts, and straining forward with an eager, homing look. The men and boys were carrying bundles, too heavy for many of them, so that they were bent under their burdens. But each one had added the last straw but one to his weight by fastening a flag to his bundle or his cap. I spoke to some of them, and they told me that they were the civilians from Lille, Valenciennes, and other towns, who had been taken away by the Germans for forced labour behind the lines. Two days ago the Germans had said, “We’ve no more use for you. Get back to your own people. The war is over.”
They looked worn and haggard, like men who had been shipwrecked. Some of the boys were weak, and sat down on the roadside with their bundles, and could go no farther. Others trudged on gamely, with crooks which they had cut from the hedges, and only stopped to cry “Vivent les Anglais!” as our soldiers passed. I looked into many of their faces, remembering the photograph of Edouard Chéri which had been given to me by his mother. Perhaps he was somewhere in those troops of homing exiles. But he might have been any one of those lanky boys in ragged jackets and broken boots, and cloth caps pulled down over the ears.
Just outside Mons, at one minute to eleven o’clock, there was a little desultory firing. Then, a bugle blew, somewhere in a distant field, one long note. It was the “Cease Fire!” A cheer coming faintly over the fields followed the bugle-call. Then there was no other sound where I stood but the scrunching of wheels of gun-limbers and transport-wagons, the squelch of mud in which horses and mules trudged, and the hard breathing of tired men marching by under their packs. So, with a curious lack of drama, the Great Adventure ended! That bugle had blown the “Cease Fire!” of a strife which had filled the world with agony and massacre; destroyed millions of men; broken millions of lives; ruined many great cities and thousands of hamlets, and left a long wide belt of country across Europe where no tree remained alive and all the earth was ravaged; crowded the world with maimed men, blind men, mad men, diseased men; flung Empires into anarchy, where hunger killed the children and women had no milk to feed their babes; and bequeathed to all fighting nations a heritage of debt beneath which many would stagger and fall. It was the “Cease Fire!” of all that reign of death, but sounded very faintly across the fields of France.
In Mons Canadian soldiers were being kissed by French girls. Women were giving them wine in doorways, and these hard-bitten fellows, tough as leather, reckless of all risk, plastered with mud which had worn into their skins and souls, drank the wine and kissed the women, and lurched laughing down the streets. There would be no strict discipline in Mons that night. They had had enough of discipline in the dirty days. Let it go on the night of Armistice! Already at midday some of these soldiers were unable to walk except with an arm round a comrade’s neck, or round the neck of strong peasant girls who screeched with laughter when they side-slipped, or staggered. They had been through hell, those men. They had lain in ditches, under frightful fire, among dead men, and bleeding men. Who would grudge them their bit of fun on Armistice night? Who would expect saintship of men who had been taught in the school of war, taught to kill quick lest they be killed, to see the worst horrors of the battlefield without going weak, to educate themselves out of the refinements of peaceful life where Christian virtues are easy and not meant for war?
“Come here, lassie. None of your French tricks for me. I’m Canadian-born. It’s a kiss or a clout from me.”
The man grabbed the girl by the arm and drew her into a barn.