Stepped out to admire, too, a fantastic collection of boxes and bags ranged close against the walls at irregular intervals. Since the affair of the soupirail gratings were no longer left unguarded. Tiny though they were, almost unnoticeable specks just where the house wall touched the pavement, they could be dangerous. Consequently, bags of sand, boxes of sand, and big rockery stones were propped against them to be a snare to the unwary at night, and, as the hot summer sped by, to testify (as our shy member cogently remarked) to the visiting proclivities of the dogs of the town. The bags burst, they added to that composite Ess Bouquet that rose so penetratingly in warm weather, but the sand and the stones remained. In the winter, snow buried them. Then the snow froze. Coming round the corner of the Rue Lapique one dark Laplandish night, I trod on the edge of a heap of frozen snow.... There are six hundred and seventy-three ways of falling on frozen snow, and I practised most of them that winter, but, as an accomplishment, am bound to admit that they seem to be devoid of any artistic merit whatever.
Following the sandbags came affiches. Every cellared house—and nearly every house had its cellar—blazed the information abroad. "Cave voutée" (vaulted cellar), 20 personnes, 50 personnes, 200 personnes, even 500 personnes, indicated shelter in an emergency. In a raid every man's cellar is his neighbour's. Once we harboured some refugees, and that night at dinner the shy member (perhaps I ought to say that the adjective was entirely self-bestowed), gurgled suddenly. We looked at her expectantly.
"I was only thinking that Miss —— (No. I shall not betray her!) is not supposed to smoke when the refugees are about, but in the middle of the raid she came swanking down to the cellar to-day with a cigarette in her mouth."
As one not unremotely connected with the incident I take leave to disqualify "swank." Professional smokers never swank, it is the attribute of the mere amateur.
So many precautions were taken, it would seem that any one who got hurt during a raid had only himself to blame, and for those who may think warnings superfluous, I may add that never again was the casualty list as high as on that unwarned Ascension Day. Indeed, in subsequent raids—while I was in Bar, at least—it decreased in the most arresting manner. True, the day and night were rendered hideous with noise. To the sirène was added the steam-whistle at the gas-works, but these being deemed insufficient, a loud tocsin clanged from the old Horloge on the hill. I have known people to sleep through them all, but their names will never be divulged by so discreet a historian.
Though the danger was lessened, the nerve-strain unfortunately remained. Mothers with children found life intolerable. It was bad enough to spend one's days like a Jack-in-the-box jumping in and out of the cellar, but infinitely worse to spend the night doing it. Flight was—I was going to say in the air! It was at least on many lips. People were poised, as it were, hesitant, unwilling to haul up anchor, afraid to face out upon the unknown sea, yet still more afraid to remain. Then, as I have told you, eight warnings and two raids in twenty-four hours robbed over-taxed nerves of their last ounce of endurance. The Prefecture was besieged, and in one day alone three hundred people left the town. Those who had friends or relatives in other districts were, as is usual in all such cases, allowed to join them, others were herded like sheep, and like sheep were driven where shepherd and sheep-dog willed. Nearly all the Basket-makers fled. The Maison Blanpain turned its unsavoury contents out of doors. Many of our fastest and firmest friends came to say good-bye with tears in their eyes; it was a heartrending time, and one which, if continued, would have seen an end to all our labour. This fear was happily not realised, for as fast as one lot of refugees went away another lot drifted in, and the following winter was the busiest we were to know.
To all who came to say good-bye, clothes were given, and especially boots, America having come again to our rescue with some consignments which, if they added to our grey hairs—I would "rather be a dog and bay the moon" than assistant in a boot-shop—added in far larger measure to the contentment and happiness of the fugitives.
Boots were, and no doubt still are, almost unobtainable luxuries, for those who try to make both ends of an allocation meet. As a garment, it may be said that the allocation (I change my metaphor, you notice) just falls below the waist-line, it never reaches down to the feet. How could it when even a child's pair of shoes cost as much as twelve francs? and are du papier at that.
Our boot-shop was a dark, damp, refrigerating closet at the end of the hall where boots of all sizes were of necessity piled, or slung over lines that stretched across the room. What you needed was never on a line. But the line's adornments beat you about the head as you stooped to burrow in the heaps underneath.
To add to your enjoyment of the situation, you were aware that the difference between French feet and American feet is as wide as the Atlantic that rolls between.