Six Women And The Invasion Part 32

Now, the word "barbarians" is to a German like a red rag to a bull.

So, two days afterwards, the family of the imprudent little person were awakened out of their sleep at four o'clock in the morning. A sergeant and four men came to fetch the guilty girl and take her to Chalandry.

Half an hour was granted her to get ready. Mad with despair and shaken with sobs herself, she left her parents sunk in desolation and in tears.

They even did not know how long their child would be imprisoned. Towards evening the father succeeded in seeing the commandant, who told him his daughter would be in prison for three weeks.

"I was not too uncomfortable," the poor thing said afterwards; "one of the 'nurses' was rather nice ... we were sewing the whole day long ...

but there were such funny women there...."

I should think so.

Then what an excellent pretext for vexatious measures was this enforced service! A rich landowner of Vivaise, who was ill, sent a servant of his, old but able-bodied, to take his place. One morning the officer asked:

"Why does M. Villars not come himself?"

"He is ill."

"He is not so ill as you are pleased to say. He must come, and we will see what occupation he is fit for."

M. Villars had to yield, and by way of an easy little job he was ordered to clean the soldiers' closet, and gather up dung on the road. Ah, the enslavers knew how to rouse our wrath, and more than one Prussian well-nigh paid with his life for his insolence.

If our men strove hard to be always submissive it is because they knew that a single attempt at revolt might have caused the village to be set on fire and the inhabitants dispersed. Yet once a worker had a quarrel with a Prussian. He was a youth of eighteen, who, when he had seen the convoys go away, had cried for rage and clenched his fists, saying:

"Ah, if I were but allowed to go ... within eight days I should wear red trousers!"

He did not know that red trousers were blue now, but he meant well, and this young fellow one evening gave a sharp answer to one of the soldiers who supervised the work of the fields. The Prussian, not quick at the answer, aimed his revolver at him. The boy stooped down, and the bullet was lost in a bush. At the same time a sudden collective rage seized upon the companions of the young man, who had listened to the quarrel a few steps away. Armed with hay-forks, scythes and spades, they rushed headlong upon the common enemy, who bounded forward and fled across the country. It was a splendid chase: Jacques Bonhomme pursuing Michael.

With the whole band at his heels, the Prussian raced across fields and meadows, cleared the hedges, crossed the brooks, got to the village, and went to earth. The pursuers stopped and looked at one another. "What were we going to do?" With a sheepish look and their arms dangling, they went home more than ever depressed beneath a feeling of helplessness.

Our tyrants were not content with worrying us with pa.s.sports and enforced service. They continued to strip us methodically, poor shorn lambs as we were, to whom the wind was not tempered but whose food was strictly measured. Though the Germans had taken all the fruits of the fields, they were still afraid that something might be left us to eat.

So the farmers' wives were forced during the summer to reconst.i.tute their poultry yards. All birds were counted and requisitioned. Besides, the farmers had to deliver to the _Kommandantur_ as many eggs as they had hens every fourth day.

"What are we to do if the hens lay no eggs?"

"Do as you will," replied the Germans.

The fruit-trees in the orchards and gardens looked promising. We all rejoiced at it. "If we have nothing else to eat we shall have marmalade." But the first rosy tint had hardly spread over the cheeks of the apples, when the rural constable proclaimed throughout the village: "When good and ripe, fallen apples should be brought to the _Bureau_; a severe penalty will be enforced on the refractory persons."

But the Germans still thought that we might cheat them, and the fruit was unripe when they began to gather it. Children from twelve to sixteen were requisitioned, and under the supervision of two soldiers they knocked down the plums and picked them up. A month later it was the turn of the apples, and then of the pears. The Germans carried off the fruit throughout the country, and we saw hundreds of carts go by loaded with sacks of apples, which were conveyed to Germany.

Among the most troublesome announcements made to the amazed parish--always with a threat against refractory persons--I must recall that which forbade them to cut down gra.s.s along roads and paths. This annoyed particularly the owners of rabbits, goats, and kids; the animals were requisitioned, but as long as the Germans were not in need of them the peasant had to take charge of them--had the use of them, if I may say so. And it was no trifle to feed the cattle, as the provender was requisitioned.

In Mme. Lantois' big shed the Germans had heaped up a great deal of hay, and towards evening the farmer's wife used to stand on her threshold, and, after a glance to the right and left, she would run to the shed, gather up an armful of hay, and come back home in a hurry. "My poor beasts," she said, "I can't give them enough to eat. When I hear them move about of nights it nearly breaks my heart; it prevents me from sleeping, it does."

In the autumn the potatoes were dug up and sent to the north. The peasants were furious. One of them, busy digging in his own field behind his house, muttered between his teeth: "Isn't it a shame! The very potatoes I have planted myself! And I shan't have any! Wait a minute!"

He had on a large belt that transformed the upper part of his shirt into a sack. His hand went by turns down to the ground and up to his neck, and he soon had the figure of Punch. While the guard studied the weather, his nose lifted up towards the sky, the man sneaked away, slipped into his house, emptied his belt, came back, and began again.

Alas, came the moment when the guard discovered the trick!

This guard was a holy man, fat, stout, demure-looking, a canting preacher, who not only took the apostleship of his nation for granted, but his own too. When the misappropriated potatoes had got back to the Prussian sacks our Mr. Smooth-Tongue looked at the grieved culprit--grieved at having been caught--looked at the hollow-cheeked faces around him, at the sunken, jaded eyes. He paused before speaking, tossed his head three times, and said: "How perverse are the French!

Don't you know that stealing is forbidden? And don't you know that the potatoes belong to the Germans? Now then, by taking our potatoes you commit a theft. It is a disgrace. Be sure you never do such a thing again!" Such talk was to be heard from many Germans. It suits them. I delight in hearing them sing this tune, the _Gazette des Ardennes_ at their head, and cry up to the skies the good, the beautiful. They go still further, and my joy increases. They laud the love of their neighbour, respect for the property of others, compa.s.sion towards the weak; they extol the meekness, the goodness, the infinite sweet temper of Germany. But oh! it is ever to be regretted that so many n.o.ble words should be delivered in vain. Such rubbish does not take with us.

"Their _Gazette des Ardennes_!" exclaimed a farmer's wife. "We buy it only to read the list of French prisoners, and because there is no other newspaper. But when my husband reads it, he never leaves off thumping on the table, and rapping out oaths from beginning to end. Since those filthy fellows have settled themselves down here, one has never a fine word in one's mouth!"

"The other day," another woman told us, "my husband had to bring vegetables to Laon. He went to have his pa.s.s signed; the sergeant held out his hand to take the paper and said: 'Well, comrade?' My husband gave no answer, but he thought to himself: 'You my comrade! I would rather kick you soundly than call you that.'"

Our sense of impotence was never greater than in the month of August, when the Germans trumpeted abroad with a sneer the defeat of the Russians, and oh, sacrilege! ordered our own bells to be rung to celebrate the glorious deeds of the German army! But in September hope rose in our hearts, and filled them with joy. The offensive began in Champagne. The cannon raged as never before. How they rolled and shook and roared! And to our minds the uproar was suave, the rumbling was blessed.

The French aeroplanes came eight days running to drop bombs on the station at Laon. Six, seven, even ten were to be seen at the same time in the sky; they sparkled like jewels in the deep-blue heavens; they well-nigh drove us mad; we jumped for joy in the garden, cheered them, and would gladly have thrown our hearts out to them. Fortunately no outsiders were the witnesses of our frenzy, or we should have been found guilty. At Laon, two young girls were looking out of an upper window, and at the sight of the dear aeroplanes had screamed with joy, and clapped their hands. Alas, some soldiers saw them from the street, and lodged an information against them! They were immediately arrested, tried, and sentenced to a month's imprisonment. We lived in hope for a whole week. The _Gazette des Ardennes_ suppressed the French official reports which they generally gave at full length--at least so they said--and we thought that the offensive, even in the Germans' opinion, bade fair to succeed. Then the cannon was silent once more, and our hearts sank within us.

The fair weather was past. It was cold and rainy, and again, as the year before, we gathered every evening around the lamp--a horrid, evil-smelling horse-oil lamp. Our circle was often out of spirits; our very gestures revealed weariness. Thirteen months of captivity lay heavy on us, and we had received no news whatever of those we loved:

"Oh, they are all dead!" sighed Colette.

Yet we reposed the strictest confidence in our army. We felt sure victory would ultimately be ours. But, oh! how long was victory in coming!

It was cold and damp. We were afraid of the coming winter. Though the summer had brought us many hardships, yet we had made shift to live; but how could we manage in the bad season, when we had neither fuel nor vegetables? They had refused us permission to cut down trees in our own woods, though the invaders had ma.s.sacred them at will. Besides, the Germans chose this very moment to threaten us with enforced service. We were told that we were no longer allowed to get other persons to supply our places as day labourers.

"The subst.i.tutes you find prove that they are still able-bodied. So they must work for their own account, and you for yours."

"Oh!" we moaned, "is there no means of escape from this h.e.l.l?"

We had made several attempts, had addressed pet.i.tions, and written letters that had been either thrown away or answered with a negative.

And now they wanted to add penal servitude to imprisonment! They would oblige us to work from morning till night, in the mud, in the rain.

"I prefer going to Chalandry," Genevieve repeated.

But we were excused enforced service, and exempted from prison. A greater misfortune spared us these troubles. One morning I met in the pa.s.sage two callers who did not ask for Jackdaw's Legs. One of them, very tall, very thin, and very stiff, with j.a.panese-like features, bent himself down with a low bow. His companion, smaller but just as thin and stiff, copied him hastily.

"Madam," lisped the former in a faint voice, "I should like to see the owner of this house."

I showed both men in, and rushed into my mother-in-law's bedroom.

Everybody was in a stir.

"What do they want? This visit foretells no good, of course."

"It is the general's son," Colette said. "I had him pointed out to me a few days ago."

Mme. Valaine walked into the dining-room, where the visitors were waiting. On tip-toe we went into the pa.s.sage, and holding our breaths anxiously listened from behind the door.

As soon as my mother-in-law entered the room, the officers got up, and bowed themselves at right angles. Then the lisping voice began:

"Madam, I am a staff officer. I have been ordered to inform you of a decision that concerns you nearly...."

"Ah!..."

Behind the door left ajar we strained uneasy ears; the speaker went on with his speech:

"You are not ignorant, madam, of the painful necessities of the war, and I am sorry to have to tell you that we are in need of your house...."