A Hilltop on the Marne Part 10

"Well, then," I replied, "don't you want to sleep here to-night?"

With her pretty smile, she pulled her nightdress from under her arm: that was what she had come for. So I made her go to bed in the big bed in the guest-chamber, and leave the door wide open; and do you know, she was fast asleep in five minutes, and she snored, and I smiled to hear her, and thought it the most comforting sound I had ever heard.

As for me, I did not sleep a moment. I could not forget the poor fellows lying dead out there in the starlight--and it was such a beautiful night.

XIV

September 8, 1914.

It was about my usual time, four o'clock, the next morning,--Sunday, September 6,--that I opened my blinds. Another lovely day. I was dressed and downstairs when, a little before five, the battle recommenced.

I rushed out on the lawn and looked off. It had moved east--behind the hill between me and Meaux. All I could see was the smoke which hung over it. Still it seemed nearer than it had the day before. I had just about room enough in my mind for one idea--"The Germans wish to cross the Marne at Meaux, on the direct route into Paris. They are getting there. In that case to-day will settle our fate. If they reach the Marne, that battery at Coutevroult will come into action,"--that was what Captain Edwards had said,--"and I shall be in a direct line between the two armies."

Amelie got breakfast as if there were no cannon, so I took my coffee, and said nothing. As soon as it was cleared away, I went up into the attic, and quietly packed a tiny square hat-trunk. I was thankful that this year's clothes take up so little room. I put in changes of underwear, stockings, slippers, an extra pair of low-heeled shoes, plenty of handkerchiefs,--just the essentials in the way of toilette stuff,--a few bandages and such emergency things, and had room for two dresses. When it was packed and locked, it was so light that I could easily carry it by its handle on top. I put my long black military cape, which I could carry over my shoulder, on it, with hat and veil and gloves. Then I went down stairs and shortened the skirt of my best walking-suit, an/d hung it and its jacket handy. I was ready to fly,--if I had to,--and in case of that emergency nothing to do for myself.

I had got all this done systematically when my little French friend--I call her Mile. Henriette now--came to the door to say that she simply "could not stand another day of it." She had put, she said, all the ready money they had inside her corset, and a little box which contained all her dead father's decorations also, and she was ready to go. She took out the box and showed the pretty jeweled things,--his cross of the Legion d'Honneur, his Papal decoration, and several foreign orders,--her father, it seems, was an officer in the army, a great friend of the Orleans family, and grandson of an officer of Louis XVI's Imperial Guard. She begged me to join them in an effort to escape to the south. I told her frankly that it seemed to me impossible, and I felt it safer to wait until the English officers at Coutevroult notified us that it was necessary. It would be as easy then as now--and I was sure that it was safer to wait for their advice than to adventure it for ourselves. Besides, I had no intention of leaving my home and all the souvenirs of my life without making every effort I could to save them up to the last moment. In addition to that, I could not see myself joining that throng of homeless refugies on the road, if I could help it.

"But," she insisted, "you cannot save your house by staying. We are in the same position. Our house is full of all the souvenirs of my father's family. It is hard to leave all that--but I am afraid--terribly afraid for the children."

I could not help asking her how she proposed to get away. So far as I knew there was not a carriage to be had.

She replied that we could start on foot in the direction of Melun, and perhaps find an automobile: we could share the expense. Together we could find a way, and what was more, that I could share my optimism and courage with them and that would help.

That made me laugh, but I didn't think it necessary to explain to her that, once away from the shelter of my own walls, I should be just as liable to a panic as any one else, or that I knew we should not find a conveyance, or, worse still, that her money and her jewels would hardly be safe inside her corset if she were to meet with some of the Uhlans who were still about us.

Amelie had not allowed me to carry a sou on me, nor even my handbag since we knew they were here. Such things as that have been hidden-all ready to be s.n.a.t.c.hed up--ever since I came home from Paris last Wednesday--only four days ago, after all!

Poor Mile. Henriette went away sadly when she was convinced that my mind was made up.

"Good-bye," she called over the hedge. "I seem to be always taking leave of you."

I did not tell Amelie anything about this conversation. What was the good? I fancy it would have made no difference to her. I knew pretty well to what her mind was made up. Nothing in the world would have made Pere budge. He had tried it in 1870, and had been led to the German post with a revolver at his head. He did not have any idea of repeating the experience. It was less than half an hour later that Mile.

Henriette came up the hill again. She was between tears and laughter.

"Mother will not go," she said. "She says if you can stay we must. She thinks staying is the least of two evils. We can hide the babies in the cave if necessary, and they may be as safe there as on the road."

I could not help saying that I should be sorry if my decision influenced theirs. I could be responsible for myself. I could not bear to have to feel any responsibility for others in case I was wrong. But she a.s.sured me that her mother had been of my opinion from the first. "Only," she added, "if I could have coaxed you to go, she would have gone too."

This decision did not add much to my peace of mind all that long Sunday.

It seems impossible that it was only day before yesterday. I think the suspense was harder to bear than that of the day before, though all we could see of the battle were the dense clouds of smoke rising straight into the air behind the green hill under such a blue sky all aglow with sunshine, with the incessant booming of the cannon, which made the contrasts simply monstrous.

I remember that it was about four in the afternoon when I was sitting in the arbor under the crimson rambler, which was a glory of bloom, that Pere came and stood near by on the lawn, looking off. With his hands in the pockets of his blue ap.r.o.n, he stood silent for a long time. Then he said, "Listen to that. They are determined to pa.s.s. This is different from 1870. In 1870 the Germans marched through here with their guns on their shoulders. There was no one to oppose them. This time it is different. It was harvest-time that year, and they took everything, and destroyed what they did not take. They bedded their horses in the wheat."

You see Pere's father was in the Franco-Prussian War, and his grandfather was with Napoleon at Moscow, where he had his feet frozen.

Pere is over seventy, and his father died at ninety-six. Poor old Pere just hates the war. He is as timid as a bird--can't kill a rabbit for his dinner. But with the queer spirit of the French farmer he has kept right on working as if nothing were going on. All day Sat.u.r.day and all day Sunday he was busy digging stone to mend the road.

The cannonading ceased a little after six--thirteen hours without intermission. I don't mind confessing to you that I hope the war is not going to give me many more days like that one. I'd rather the battle would come right along and be done with it. The suspense of waiting all day for that battery at Coutevroult to open fire was simply nasty.

I went to bed as ignorant of how the battle had turned as I was the night before. Oddly enough, to my surprise, I slept, and slept well.

XV

September 8, 1914.

I did not wake on the morning of Monday, September 7,-- yesterday,--until I was waked by the cannon at five. I jumped out of bed and rushed to the window. This time there could be no doubt of it: the battle was receding. The cannonading was as violent, as incessant, as it had been the day before, but it was surely farther off--to the northeast of Meaux. It was another beautiful day. I never saw such weather.

Amelie was on the lawn when I came down. "They are surely retreating,"

she called as soon as I appeared.

"They surely are," I replied. "It looks as if they were somewhere near Lizy-sur-I'Ourcq," and that was a guess of which I was proud a little later. I carry a map around these days as if I were an army officer.

As Amelie had not been for the milk the night before, she started off quite gayly for it. She has to go to the other side of Voisins. It takes her about half an hour to go and return; so--just for the sake of doing something--I thought I would run down the hill and see how Mile.

Henriette and the little family had got through the night.

Amelie had taken the road across the fields. It is rough walking, but she doesn't mind. I had stopped to tie a fresh ribbon about my cap,--a tri-color,--and was about five minutes behind her. I was about halfway down the hill when I saw Amelie coming back, running, stumbling, waving her milk-can and shouting, "Madame--un anglais, un anglais." And sure enough, coming on behind her, his face wreathed in smiles, was an English bicycle scout, wheeling his machine. As soon as he saw me, he waved his cap, and Amelie breathlessly explained that she had said, "Dame americaine" and he had dismounted and followed her at once.

We went together to meet him. As soon as he was near enough, he called out, "Good-morning. Everything is all right. Germans been as near you as they will ever get. Close shave."

"Where are they?" I asked as we met.

"Retreating to the northeast--on the Ourcq."

I could have kissed him. Amelie did. She simply threw both arms round his neck and smacked him on both cheeks, and he said, "Thank you, ma'am," quite prettily; and, like the nice clean English boy he was, he blushed.

"You can be perfectly calm," he said. "Look behind you."

I looked, and there along the top of my hill I saw a long line of bicyclists in khaki.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, a little alarmed. For a moment I thought that if the English had returned, something was going to happen right here.

"English scouts," he replied. "Colonel Snow's division, clearing the way for the advance. You've a whole corps of fresh French troops coming out from Paris on one side of you, and the English troops are on their way to Meaux."

"But the bridges are down," I said.

"The pontoons are across. Everything is ready for the advance. I think we've got 'em." And he laughed as if it were all a game of cricket.

By this time we were in the road. I sent Amelie on for the milk. He wheeled his machine up the hill beside me. He asked me if there was anything they could do for me before they moved on. I told him there was nothing unless he could drive out the Uhlans who were hidden near us.