The road then led up an incline through a small village that was filled with soldiers. A patrol halted us as usual and informed us that there was no hotel within another five miles, and possibly even that hotel might be closed. At this news our excitable chauffeur immediately killed his engine and the car started slipping backward down the incline. Fifty soldiers leaped forward and held it while the brakes were applied. We distributed a score of newspapers and as many cigarettes before we could get under way.
We passed no more patrols, but when our lights finally picked out the first signs of the next village they also brought into bold relief a pile of masonry completely blocking the road. We stopped. A villager loomed out of the dark at the side of the car and informed us that the road was barred because the bridge just beyond had been blown up and that we could not pass over the pontoon until morning. The inn, he said, had never been closed nor was its stock of tobacco yet exhausted. He offered to conduct us, and when the innkeeper—a very fat innkeeper—looked over our credentials from General Galliéni he insisted that certain guests should double up, in order to make room for us in the crowded place. He then called his wife, his daughter, his father and his father's wife, that they might be permitted the honor of shaking us by the hand, as he held aloft the candle, the flame of which flickered down the ancient stone corridor that led to our rooms.
(B) The Wounded Who Could Walk
We were crossing a battlefield four days old. It was remarkable how much it resembled the ordinary kind of field. The French had conquered quickly at this point and the dead had been buried. Except for frequent mounds of earth headed by sticks forming crosses; except for the marks of shrapnel in the roads and on the trees; except for the absence of every living thing, this countryside was at peace. The sun was shining. The frost had brought out flaming tints on the hills. It was glorious Indian summer.
The road we were motoring wound far away through the battlefield. For the armies had fought over a front of many miles. We traveled slowly. As we topped a rise and searched the valley below with our glasses, a mile away in the cup of the valley we saw a moving mass. It filled the roadway from hedge to hedge and appeared to be approaching us. We drove more slowly, stopping several times. The movement of the car made the glasses quiver and blur. We saw that the moving mass stretched back a considerable distance—perhaps the length of a city block. We stopped our engine and waited in the center of the road.
As the mass came nearer it outlined itself into men. We saw that they were soldiers; but we could not distinguish the uniform. So we waited. We even got our papers ready to show if necessary. Then we saw that the soldiers were not of the same regiment—that their uniforms were conglomerate. We saw the misfits of the French line regiments, the gay trappings of the Spahis and Chasseurs d'Afrique, the skirt trousers of the Zouaves, Turcos and Senegalese, the khaki of the English Tommies and the turbans of the Hindoos. But all these men in the varied costumes of the army of the Allies wore one common mark—a bandage. Arm or head or face was wrapped in white cloths, usually stained with blood. For these on whom we waited were the wounded who could walk. They were going from the battle trenches to somewhere in the rear.
The front rank glanced wonderingly at the big motor that blocked the center of the road and moved aside in either direction. Those behind did likewise, until there was a lane for the car to pass. But we waited. As the front rank came level with us, a dust-caked British Tommy, with a bloody bandage over one eye, winked his good one at us and touched his cap in salute. We took our hats off as the tragic crowd surrounded us. Tommy sat down on our running board and I handed him a cigarette.
The cigarette established cordial relations at once. Tommy's lean face was browned by the sun and streaked with dirt. About the bandage which encircled his head and crossed his right eye were cakes of dirt and clots of blood. His hair where his cap was pushed back was sand color and crinkly. The eye that turned up to me was pale blue and the skin just about it was white and blue veined.
"Is this Frawnce or is it Belgium?" he asked me. At my answer he squirmed around on the running board, calling to a companion in khaki just coming up—his arm in a sling—"'Ee says it's Frawnce." The other nodded indifferently and saluted us.
I asked the man about the battle, but he only stared. His friend on the running board turned his eye upward and said, "It's 'ell, that's wot it is." I replied that my question had to do with the course of the battle—which side was winning; and he too only stared at that. Then he arose and plodded on and I gave a cigarette to his companion.