Round about Bar-le-Duc

by Susanne R. Day

But the awful sleeping accommodation weighed heavily on our consciences—the brown pall of atmosphere, the fœtid SOLID smell, the murky lamp, the fitful glow of the fires, and on the floor on the dirty inadequate straw a dense mass of human beings. Lying in their clothes just as they came from the station, or as they left the big camions in which many were driven down, not daring even to unlace their boots, they were wedged so tightly we thought not even a child could have found space. Some, tossing in their sleep, had flung themselves across neighbours too exhausted to protest; acute discomfort was suggested in every pose; many were sitting up, propped against their bundles; children lay anyhow, a heterogenous mass of arms and legs, or pillowed their heads against their mothers.

"Surely," it was said as we came away, "surely the cup of human misery has never been so full."

Yet we were told the next day that during the night a fresh convoy had come in, and that the garde-champêtre, tramping up and down the narrow lane in the straw, shouted, "Serrez-vous, serrez-vous," forcing the wretched creatures to be in still closer proximity, to sleep in even greater discomfort.

II

Soon the numbers grew too large for the space, and the long gallery running down from the "dining-room" was converted into a sleeping apartment, a screen of white calico or linen serving as an outer wall. The upper end through which we passed in order to gain access to the original rooms was utilised for meals, a number of tables being brought in and ranged as closely as possible together. Even then the congestion and confusion continued; they were, indeed, an integral part of all Marché Couvert activities, but to our great relief the sleeping quarters were improved. A number of palliasse cases, the gift of a rich woman of the town, were filled with straw, and over most we were able to pin detachable slips made from wheat bags, an immense number of which—made from strong, but soft linen thread—had been offered to us at a moderate price by the Chamber of Commerce acting through the Mayor. Three of these, or four, according to the size required, sewn cannily together made excellent sheets—greatly sought after by the refugees—indeed, we turned them to all kinds of use as time went on. The slips were invaluable now, as, needless to say, the palliasse covers would have been in a disgusting condition in a week, but it was not until the Society presented the new dormitory with twelve iron bedsteads and some camp beds that we felt that Civilisation was lifting up her head again. The beds were placed together at the far end of the dormitory and were primarily intended for sick people or for better-class women who, unable to find a lodging in the town, had to accept the doubtful hospitality of the market. Unhappily there were many of these, and it was heartrending to see women sitting up in the comfortless chairs all night in the cold eating-place rather than face the horror of the straw and the crowded common-room.

Once the beds were installed that contingency no longer arose, though Heaven knows the new apartment was squalid and miserable enough; the beds ranged at the lower end, the palliasses running in close-packed rows by each wall, space enough in the middle to walk between, but no more.

One day we found one of our camp beds at the upper end with a fox-terrier sitting on it, and on inquiry were told that a garde had taken it, evicting two poor old women as he did so. Now we had never intended those beds for lusty officials, so we very naturally protested, but a more than tactful hint reduced us to silence. The gardes had it in their power to make things very unpleasant for us if they felt so inclined; it would be politic to say nothing. Having no official standing, we said nothing. What we thought is immaterial. Later the gendarme was the Don Juan of an incident to which only a Guy de Maupassant could do justice. There, in all that misery, in that makeshift apartment packed with suffering humanity, with children and young girls, with modest and disgusted women looking on, human passions broke through every code of decency and restraint. The scandal lasted for three days, then the woman was sent away.

Meanwhile the news from Verdun was becoming graver. The roads were cut to pieces, motor-cars, gun-carriages, camions were burying themselves axle-deep in the mire; one road impassable, another was made, but by the time the first was repaired the second was a slough. The weather, always in league with the Germans, showed no sign of taking up, wet snow was falling heavily.... "Three more days of this and Verdun must fall."

Soldiers subsequently told us that it was the camion drivers who saved the situation, for they stuck to their wagons day and night, one snatching rest and sleep while another drove. They poured through Bar-le-Duc in hundreds, the roar of traffic thundering down the Boulevard all day long. In the night we would lie awake listening. It sounded like a rough sea dragging back from a stone-strewn shore. Once, if soldier tales be true, "the Boches could have walked into Verdun with their rifles over their shoulders. Four days and four nights we lay in the open, Mademoiselle. Our trenches were blown to pieces, we were cut off by the barrage, we had no food but our emergency rations, no ammunition could reach us. Then our guns became silent. The Boches, thinking it was a ruse, a trap, were afraid to come on. They thought we were reserving fire to mow them down at close quarters, so they waited twelve hours, and during that time our camions brought the ammunition up, and when they did come on we were ready for them."