Passed by the censor

by Wythe Williams

(A) Sentries in the Dark

The car whizzed down the straight country road. We were trying to make night quarters thirty kilometers away. The dusk was already upon us—and the rain. Every night for a week the rain had come at dusk. We were well behind the battle lines, but the Germans had held that countryside only a few days before. Many of them still lurked in the dense woods. At dusk they were apt to shoot at passing motors. If they killed the occupants, they secured clothes and credentials and attempted cutting through to their own lines. The night before, a French general had been killed on the road we were passing. Therefore it was not well to be abroad at dusk, too far northward on the battlefield of the Aisne. But we had cast a tire and lost considerable time. It was necessary to go forward or strike back toward Paris. To remain in the open held an additional risk of being stopped by a British patrol—we were near their lines—and the British were not so polite as the French about requisitioning big touring cars. Our credentials were French.

So we dipped into the night down a long road that ran between solid shadows of towering trees, behind which ran the continuous hedge of the French countryside, making an ideal hiding place for enemies. The rain increased and so did the cold. Our French driver struggled into an ulster and we crouched low in the body of the limousine, watching the whirling road revealed by our powerful headlights fifty yards in front of the car.

Suddenly came a sharp cry. The chauffeur crashed on the brakes and the car slid to a standstill. I knew that cry from many a novel I had read, but I had never actually heard it before. It was the famous "Qui vive" or "Who goes there?" of the French army. We sat waiting. We saw no one. The rain poured down.

The cry was repeated. A soldier stepped into the road and stood in the light of our lamps about thirty feet away. His rifle was half thrown across his arm and half aimed towards us. He was a tall, handsome chap wearing a long coat buttoned back at the bottom away from his muddy boots. His cap was jammed carelessly over one eye. He bent forward and peered at us under our lights, which half blinded him. Then we saw two dusky shadows at either side of the car. We caught the steel flash of bayonets turned toward us.

The chauffeur saw them too, for he cried out nervously, "Non, non!" The soldier in the road ignored him. In the dramatic language of France his "Avancez—donnez le mot de la nuit" sounded far more impressive than the English equivalent about advancing to give the countersign. He spoke the words simply, a little monotonously, with an air of having done it many times during his period of watch. Then he bent lower and peered more intently under the lights, brushing one arm across his face as though the pelting rain also interfered with his business of seeing in the night.

The chauffeur stated that we carried the signed pass of General Galliéni. If we had mentioned the Mayor of Chicago we would not have made less impression. The ghostly sentries at the sides of the car did not budge. The patrol in the center of the road in the same almost monotone announced that one of us would descend. One would be sufficient. The others might keep the shelter of the car. But he would see these credentials from General X——. If to him they did not appear in order, our fate was a matter within his discretion. We were traveling an important highway and his orders were definite. So the member of our party who carried the important slip of paper descended.

The sentry in the road moved further into the light. As he read the pass he sheltered it from the rain under the cape of his coat. The guards at the sides of the car remained as though built in position. Then the leader handed back the paper and brought his hand to salute. The others immediately broke their pose; moved into the light and likewise saluted. The tension relieved, we all felt friendly. As we started forward I held a newspaper out of the window and three hands grasped it simultaneously. We had hundreds of newspapers, for some one had told us how welcome they would be at the front.

At an intersection of roads a couple of miles further on, the rain was pelting down so fiercely that we did not clearly hear the "qui vive." The chauffeur desperately called out not to shoot as a file of soldiers suddenly swung across the road with rifles leveled. On their leader we then tried an experiment which we afterwards followed religiously. We handed over a newspaper with our pass. To our surprise he turned first to the government war communiqué on the first page and read it through, grunting his satisfaction meanwhile, before he even glanced at the document which held our fate and on which the rain was making great inky smears. Then he saluted and we drove on rapidly—everybody smiling.