Gloire au drapeau,
Gloire au drapeau.
J’aimerais bien revoir la France,
Mais bravement mourir est beau.
So, in chorus, sang the children of my village, day after day, as they marched and circled about us up and down the streets. A catching tune; a laughing eye; did they realise that only twelve miles away on the firing line their soldiers were dying for the glory of the flag? No, it was not possible for them, fugitives though they themselves had been, to live the horrors of war. As Mme. Gabrielle said: “The children laugh; they do not know that our world is destroyed, and it is well.”
Yet it would be hard to find a more manly group of boys in any land than those of Canizy. They were soldiers, even in their dress; blue caps, and blue or khaki blouses and trousers which their mothers had cut and made from the cast-off coats of passing troops, English or French as the case might be. Stockings also were of a military colour; for as Mme. Marie Gense explained: “One can find stockings in the trenches sometimes,—dirty, of course, and ragged; but they can be washed and raveled, and the yarn is excellent.” So it came about that little Robert had one pair of stockings with blue tops and khaki feet, because, you understand, there was not enough wool of one colour to complete them. Above his wooden sabots, the straight splicing was plainly visible, if he were ever en repos. But my memory of Robert is of tireless feet that twinkled almost as merrily as his eyes. It was no hardship for him to walk the eight miles back and forth to the Château of a morning for his quart can of milk. Mud, rain, snow, it was all one to him. By the hand, he often brought a younger cousin, Albert, aged six. Chubby-faced and sturdy of leg was Albert, clad in a diminutive khaki suit, and a brown visored cap which failed to blight his red cheeks. Robert, being brave and unconscious, whistled the merry call he had been taught, “Bob White, Bob White!” and smiled at all the world. But Albert, being shy, buried his small nose between cap and muffler, hung his head, and if pressed too far by unsought civilities, presented his back.
It would be small wonder if all the children of Canizy had been shy. With their elders they were virtual prisoners during the German occupation. They had no incentive to gather in groups, no church and no school. Rather, they were taught to slip in and out in silence lest they attract sinister attention. One of our little soldiers to the end of his life will carry a mark of German brutality in a hand maimed by a too well aimed grenade. Even since the Retreat, their life has consisted of skulking more or less among the ruins. Raiding aeroplanes, by night or day, drop bombs in their vicinity; for Canizy lies near to Ham, the munition centre of the St. Quentin front. They hear the bombardments; and the rumours fly that the Boches are advancing. Will the lines hold? Their mothers keep eyes and ears open to the eastward. One refuses to buy a stove, because she thinks it is too risky an investment; her husband is sure the Germans will return, and a stove, it cannot be carried away. “What will you do then, if the Germans come?” I ask. “Fly,” is the universal reply. “We know the Boches; better to die than remain.”
—Et les momes Boches ils embrassent leur père? ...