Next morning we were off again on our rounds, this time with a different guide, Captain R.
We had a good view of the enemy’s lines from what had once been a child’s nursery. Poor kid! if she could see her playroom now! On the floor were a dismembered doll and part of a brick puzzle. The only furniture was a broken chair by the window and a toy cot in the corner of the room; the rest had been taken for some neighbouring billet. Near the window was a field telephone, and, on the wall near by, some printed instructions to artillery observers. The walls were decorated with numerous sketches, some of them quite well done, of French artillerymen and famous generals. A large hole in the wall and the familiar sickly smell of ‘tear shell’ showed that the enemy had detected the post and that it was no place to loiter in.
After seeing many interesting things that one cannot write about we reached one of the big ruined towns near the line, where we were entertained to lunch by two French officers. This lunch was one of the most memorable of my experiences at the front.
These officers, being engaged on very special and important work, were persona grata in the town and had a free hand in the matter of billets. At the time of our visit they were living in a house that might have been in Park Lane. A marble hall and staircase, luxuriously furnished rooms and all modern appointments—central heating, electric light, electric bells. The dining-room had every aspect of peace, wealth, and comfort. The table linen and service were of the best. The captain’s servant had evidently been a chef in private life. There were four courses and a variety of the best wines. All this was within less than a mile of the German front line, a fact which it would have been impossible to realise had it not been for the occasional desultory crack of a rifle and the regular crash and swirl of the French batteries firing over our heads! Our hosts were excellent fellows, as amusing and full of ‘esprit’ as only the French can be. They had been in the town over a year and had been shelled out of two other billets. They showed us the remains of their last home which had been even more luxurious than the present one. One could only gather some vague idea of what it had been like from the carved oak mantel-piece showing over a pile of débris at the end of the drawing-room and the torn tapestry hanging from the walls. They had taken to the cellar just in time!
Experience had taught our friends to gauge the Hun’s intentions to a nicety. A shell would pass close to the house and burst on the other side of the road. ‘That’s all right—only a short one for such and such a public building.’ The Frenchmen put another tune on the gramophone and the next ‘marmite’ goes several streets away. On another occasion a heavy shell is heard coming over from another direction. It explodes with a resounding ‘crump’ a long way down the street. That comes from one of the batteries that shell this part of the town and our two officers have their coffee served in the cellar!
This knowing when to take to the cellar is a distinct characteristic of the French. They are not for taking any unnecessary risks as some of us are, but, when a dangerous job has to be done, they will go about it with a careless gaiety that is wholly unforced. It is this spirit which is holding up the French soldier to the admiration of the whole world; the spirit that has kept the German hordes out of Verdun, and that will continue to keep them at bay till the time is ripe for a concerted effort of the allied forces.
A WAR SAVING WORTH MAKING.
In theory we are all on saving bent just now, for it is only by saving that many of us can do anything towards winning the great fight; and that each one of us must do something, everyone agrees. Unfortunately, in practice, to us as a nation saving does not come easily: we have not the instinct to save. We know no more, indeed, than sparrows, of the art of making sixpence do the work of a shilling. Quite a fair number of the petty economies we pride ourselves on having effected, of late, are ending in something nearly akin to waste. Evidently we shall have to learn from other nations, nations more thrifty than ourselves, if we are ever to do anything really worth doing in the way of saving. And there is hardly a nation in Europe from which we might not learn if we would. The Germans are experts in all that concerns economy: were it otherwise the war would be nearer its end than it is. The Austrians, too, although by nature as wasteful as we are, have been driven by lack of means into cunning devices for making money go far. These are enemy nations, it is true; still, that is no reason, surely, why we should not learn from them, even though we may not buy with them, sell with them, or even talk.
Quite recently the Relief Committee in Strassburg issued a most instructive public notice. It is an appeal to parents to show their patriotism, as well as their thrift and care for public health, by seeing to it that their children go barefoot this summer. ‘By economising in boots you save leather, and thus render valuable service to your country,’ they are informed.