Читать книгу A Woman's Experiences in the Great War - Louise Mack - Страница 25

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I don't know why we were all in such high spirits, for we had nothing but discomfort to endure.

And yet, out of that very discomfort itself, some peculiar psychic force seemed to spring to life and thrive, until we became as merry as crickets.

A more inherently melancholy type than the old Liège professor could scarcely be imagined.

Poor old soul!

He had lost his wife a week before the war, and in the siege of Liège one of his sons had fallen, and he had lost his home, and everything he held dear. He was an enormous man, dressed in deep black, the most pronounced mourning you can possibly imagine, with a great black pot-hat coming well down on his huge face. His big frame quivered like a jelly, as he sat in the corner of the train, and was shaken by the rough movements and the frequent stoppages. Yet he became cheerful, just as cheerful as any of us.

Strange as it seems in the telling, this cheerfulness is a normal condition of the people nearest the front. There is only one thing that kills it, loss of freedom when loss of freedom means loss of companionship. Ruin, danger, cold, hunger, heat, dirt, discomfort, wounds, suffering, death, are all dashed with glory, and become acceptable as part of the greatest adventure in the world. But loss of freedom wrings the colour from the brain, and shuts out this world and the next when it entails loss of comradeship.

When I first realised this strange phenomenon I thought it would take a volume of psychology to explain it.

And then, all suddenly, with no effort of thought, I found the explanation revealing itself in one magic blessed word—Companionship.

Out here in the danger-zones, the irksome isolation of ordinary lives has vanished.

We are no longer alone; there are no such things as strangers; we are all together wherever we are; in the trenches, on the roads, in the trams, in the cities, in the villages, we all talk to each other, we all know each other's histories, we pour out our hopes and fears, we receive the warm, sweet stimulus of human comradeship multiplied out of all proportion to anything that life has ever offered any single one of us before, till even pain and death take on more gentle semblance seen with the eyes of a million people all holding hands.

Young men who have not gone, go now! Find out for yourselves whether this wonderful thing that I tell you is not true, that the battle-field, apart from its terrific and glorious qualities, holds also that secret of gaiety of heart that mankind is ever searching for!

We were at St. Nicolla now, and it was nearly dark, and our train was at a standstill.

"I'll get out and see what's the matter," said the young lawyer, whom I shall refer to hereafter as Jean.

He came back in a minute looking serious.

"The train doesn't go any further!" he said. "There's no train for Ghent to-night."

We all got out, clutching our bags, and stood there on the platform in the reddened dusk that was fast passing into night.

A Pontonnier, who had been in the train with us, came up and said he was expecting an automobile to meet him here, and perhaps he could give some of us a lift as far as Ghent.

However, his automobile didn't turn up, and that little plan fell through.

Jean began to bite his moustache and walk up and down, smiling intermittently, a queer distracted-looking smile that showed his white teeth.

He always did that when he was thinking how to circumvent the authorities. He had a word here with an officer, and a word there with a gendarme. Then he came back to us:

"We shall all go and interview the stationmaster, and see what can be done!"

So we went to the stationmaster, and Jean produced his papers, and Julie produced hers, and the old professor from Liège produced his, and I produced my English passport.

Jean talked a great deal, and the stationmaster shook his head a great deal, and there was an endless colloquy, such as Belgians dearly love; and just as I thought everything was lost, the stationmaster hastened off into the dark with a little lantern and told us to follow him right across the train lines, and we came to a bewildering mass of lights, and at last we reached a spot in the middle of many train lines which seemed extremely dangerous, when the stationmaster said, "Stand there! And when train 57 comes along get immediately into the guard's van! There is only one."

We waited a long time, and the night grew cold and dark before 57 came along.

When it puffed itself into a possible position we all performed miracles in the way of climbing up an enormous step, and then we found ourselves in a little wooden van, with one dim light burning, and one wooden seat, and in we got, seating ourselves in a row on the hard seat, and off we started through the night for Ghent.

Looking through a peep-hole, I suddenly stifled an exclamation.

Pointing straight at me were the muzzles of guns.

"Mais oui," said Jean. "That is what this train is doing. It is taking guns to Ghent. There are big movements of troops going on."

We were shaken nearly to pieces.

And we went so slowly that we scarcely moved at all.

But we arrived at Ghent at last, arrived of course, as usual in war time, at a station one had never seen or heard of before, in a remote, far-off portion of the town, and then we had to find our way back to the town proper, a long, long walk. It was twelve o'clock when we got into the beautiful old dreamlike town.

First we went to the Hotel Ganda.

"Full up!" said the fat, white-faced porter rudely. "No room even on the floor to sleep."

"Can you give us something to eat?" we pleaded.

"Impossible! The kitchens are shut up."

He was a brute of a porter, an extraordinary man who never slept, and was on duty all night and all day.

He was hand in glove with the Germans all the time, his face did not belie him; he looked the ugliest, stealthiest creature, shewing a covert rudeness towards all English-speaking people, that many of us remember now and understand.

In the pitch darkness we set out again, clattering about the flagged streets of Ghent, a determined little party now, with our high spirits quite unchecked by hunger and fatigue, to try to find some sleeping place for the night.

From hotel to hotel we wandered; everyone was full; evidently a vast body of troops had arrived at Ghent that day. But, finally, at one o'clock we went last of all to the hotel we should have gone to first.

That was the Hôtel de la Poste. It being the chief hotel at Ghent, we had felt certain it would be impossible to get accommodation there. But other people had evidently thought so too, and the result was we all got a room.

From the outside, the hotel appeared to be in pitch darkness, but when we got within we found lights burning, and great companies of Belgian cavalry officers gathered in the lounge, and halls, finishing their supper.

"There are great movements of troops going on," said Jean. "This is the first time I have seen our army in Ghent."

To my delight I recognised my two friends from Aerschot, the "Brussels nuts."

On hearing that I was going to Brussels one of them begged me to go and see his father and sister, if I got safely there. And I gladly promised to do so.

After that (about two o'clock in the morning it was then) we crawled down some steps into the cellar, where the most welcome supper I have ever eaten soon pulled us all round again. Cold fowl, red wine, delicious bread and butter. Then we went up to our rooms, giving strict injunctions to be called at six o'clock, and for four hours we slept the sleep of the thoroughly tired out.

Next morning at half-past six, we were all down, and had our café-au-lait in the restaurant, and then started off cheerfully to the principal railway station.

So far so good!

All we had to do now was to get into a train and be carried straight to Brussels.

Why, then, did Jean look so agitated when we Went to the ticket office and asked for our tickets?

He turned to us with a shrug.

"Ah! Ces allemands! One never knows what the cochons are going to do! The stationmaster here says that the trains may not run into Brussels to-day. He won't book us further than Grammont! He believes the lines are cut from there on!"

I was so absorbed in watching the enormous ever-increasing crowds on the Ghent station that the seriousness of that statement passed me by. I did not realise where Grammont was. And it did not occur to me to wonder by what means I was going to get from Grammont to Brussels. I only urged that we should go on.

The old Professor and Madame Julie argued as to whether it would not be better to abandon their plans and return to Antwerp.

That seemed to me a tedious idea, so I did my best to push on.

Jean agreed.

"At any rate," he said, "we will go as far as Grammont and see what happens there. Perhaps by the time we get there we shall find everything alright again."

So at seven o'clock we steamed away from Ghent, out into the fresh bright countryside.

Now we were in the region of danger. We were outside the dernière ligne of the Belgian Army. If one came this way one came at one's risk. But as I looked from the train windows everything seemed so peaceful that I could scarcely imagine there was danger. There were no ruins here, there was no sign of War at all, only little farms and villages bathed in the blue September sunlight, with the peasants working in the fields.

As I tried to push my window higher, someone who was leaning from the next window, spoke to me in English, and I met a pair of blue English-looking eyes.

"May I fix that window for you? I guess you're English, aren't you, ma'am?"

I gave him one quick hard look.

It was the War Look that raked a face with a lightning glance.

By now, I had come to depend absolutely on the result of my glance.

"Yes!" I said, "and you are American."

He admitted that was so.

Almost immediately we fell into talk about the War.

"How long do you think it will last?" asked the American.

"I don't know, what do you think?"

"I give it six weeks. I'll be over then."

And he assured me that was the general opinion of those he knew—six weeks or less.

"But what are you doing in this train?" he added interestedly.

"Going to Brussels!"

"Brussels!"

He looked at me with amazed eyes.

"Pardon me! Did you say going to Brussels?"

"Yes."

"Pardon me! But how are you going to get to Brussels?"

"I am going there."

"But you are English?"

"Yes."

"Then you can't have a German passport to get into Brussels if you are English."

"No. I haven't got one."

"But, don't you realise, ma'am, that to get into Brussels you have got to go through the German lines?"

We began to discuss the question.

He was an American who had friends in Brussels, and was going there on business. His name was Richards. He was a kindly nice man. He could speak neither French nor Flemish, and had a Belgian with him to interpret.

"What do you think I ought to do?" I asked.

"Go back," he promptly said. "If the Germans stop you, they'll take you prisoner. And even if you do get in," he added, "you will never get out! It is even harder to get out of Brussels than it is to get in."

"I'm going to chance it!"

"Well, if that's so, the only thing I can suggest is that if you do manage to get into Brussels safely, you go to the American Consulate, and shew them your papers, and they may give you a paper that'll help you to get out."