With Those Who Wait

F >> Frances Wilson Huard >> With Those Who Wait

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The first attack was with hand grenades in the form of pebbles.
Patrols advanced into No Man's Land, crawling and crouching until with
a yell the belligerents met. Prisoners were taken on both sides.

"What forces have we in front of us?" demanded an important looking
twelve year old General of an enemy soldier who was brought before him.

Dead silence ensued.

"If he refuses to answer, turn him upside down until he does."

The order was executed.

From the opposite trench came shrieks of "Boche! Boche!--it's only the
Boche who maltreat prisoners."

The aforementioned who was rapidly developing cerebral congestion, made
sign that he would speak.

"Turn him right side up!"

The young executioner obeyed, but still held a firm grip on the
unfortunate lad's collar.

"Now, then, how many of you are there in your trenches?"

"Enough to make jelly out of your men if there are many like you!"
shrieked the captive, struggling to escape.

"Take him behind the lines, don't be rough with him. Respect is due
all prisoners," ordered the General, whose eye had caught a glimpse of
his army being menaced by the blond headed enemy.

"Look out, boys! Down with your heads! They're sending over some
'coal scuttles.' Dig in I say and keep a sharp look out! What's the
matter back there?"

"It's little Michaud. He's wounded!"

"Don't cry, Michaud, go out by the connecting trench to the dressing
station. It's not far."

The hail of "coal scuttles" having subsided, the General mounted to his
observation post.

"Hey! Michel! Gaston! hey there, the artillery!" he yelled. "Get in
at them quick. Go to it, I say. Don't you see they're going to
attack! What's artillery for, anyway?"

"We can't fire a shot. They're pounding on our munitions dump."

"What difference does that make?"

Under heavy fire the artillery achieved the impossible, which actually
resulted in bloodshed. But their determination was soon rewarded, for
the patent "Seventy Fives," represented by huge slabs of sod, soon
rained into the enemy trenches, sowing panic and disorder.

Profiting by the confusion, our General grabbed up a basket and began
distributing munitions.

"Attention! Listen to me! Don't any one fire until I give the word.
Let them approach quite close and then each one of you choose your man.
Dentu, if you're too short, stand on a stone or something!"

The artillery wreaking havoc in his midst, the enemy decided to brusque
matters and attack. He left his trenches shouting, "_Vive la France!
En avant! Aux armes, mes citoyens! A bas le Boche!_"

"Attention! Are you ready? Fire!" commanded our General.

Bing! bang! a veritable tornado of over-ripe tomatoes deluged the
astonished oncomers, who hesitated an instant and then fell back. The
standard bearer having received one juicy missile full in the face,
dropped his emblem and stared wild-eyed about him. From the head and
hair of the enemy General, whose cardboard helmet had been crushed to a
pulp, streamed a disgusting reddish mess. The other unfortunate
wounded were weeping.

"_En avant a la bayonette_! _Vive la France_! We've got them, they're
ours," shrieked the delighted commander, who owed his rank to the fact
that his parents kept a fruit stand.

It was victory for certain, and a proudly won triumph. The melee was
hot and ferocious, many a patch or darn being put in store for certain
patient, all-enduring mothers.

The dressing station was full to overflowing. Here the feminine
element reigned supreme, their heads eclipsed beneath a stolen dish
cloth, a borrowed towel, or a grimy handkerchief. And here too, little
Michaud, his pate enveloped in so many yards of bandage that he seemed
to be all turban, sat on an impromptu cot, smiling benignly while
devouring a three sou apple tart, due to the generosity of the Ladies'
Red Cross Emergency Committee, which had taken up a collection in order
to alleviate the sufferings of their dear hero.

To be perfectly frank, almost all the supply of dressings had been
employed on Michaud's person at the very outbreak of hostilities, so,
therefore, when the stock ran short and more were needed, they were
merely unrolled from about his head.

Leaving him to his fate, we advanced a bit in order to communicate with
one of the glorious vanquished.

"They think they've got us," he explained, "but just you wait and see!
I know a shop on the Avenue de Clichy where you can get rotten eggs for
nothing! They don't know what's coming to them--they don't!"

Thus for these little folks the very state of their existence is the
war. They do not talk about it because they are living it. Even those
who are so fortunate as to recall the happy times when there was no
conflict, scarcely assume a superiority over their comrades who cannot
remember that far distant epoch.

"My papa'll be home next week on furlough if there isn't an attack," or
"Gee, how we laughed down cellar the night of the bombardment," are
common phrases, just as the words, "guns, shells, aeroplanes and gas,"
form the very elements of their education. The better informed
instruct the others, and it is no uncommon occurrence to see a group of
five or six little fellows hanging around a doorway, listening to a
gratuitous lecture on the 75, given by an elder.

"That's not true," cuts in one. "It's not that at all, the
_correcteur_ and the _debouchoir_ are not the same thing. Not by a
long sight! I ought to know, hadn't I, my father's chief gunner in his
battery."

"Ah, go on! Didn't Mr. Dumont who used to teach the third grade, draw
it all out for us on the blackboard the last time he was home on leave?
What do you take us for? Why he's even got the _Croix de Guerre_ and
the 'Bananna.'" [1]

Nor is the _communique_ ignored by these budding heroes. On the
contrary, it is read and commented upon with fervour.

In a little side street leading to the Seine, I encountered a ten year
old lad, dashing forward, brandishing the evening paper in his hand.

"Come on, kids, it's time for the _communique_," he called to a couple
of smaller boys who were playing on the opposite curb. The children
addressed (one may have been five, the other seven, or thereabouts)
immediately abandoned their marbles, and hastened to join their
companion, who breathlessly unfolded the sheet.

"Artillery combats in Flanders----" he commenced.

The little fellows opened their big candid eyes, their faces were drawn
and grave, in an intense effort of attention. Their mouths gaped
unconsciously. One felt their desire to understand, to grasp things
that were completely out of reach.

"During the night a spirited attack with hand grenades in the region of
the Four de Paris," continued the reader. "We progressed slightly to
the East of Mort Homme, and took an element of trenches. We captured
two machine guns, and made several prisoners."

"My papa's in Alsace," piped one listener.

"And mine's in the Somme."

"That's all right," inferred the elder. "Isn't mine at Verdun?" and
then proudly, "And machine gunner at that!"

Then folding his paper and preparing to move on:

"The news is good--we should worry."

Yes, that's what the little ones understood best of all, "the news is
good," and a wonderful, broad, angelic smile spread out over their
fresh baby faces; a smile so bewitching that I couldn't resist
embracing them--much to their surprise.

[Illustration: A COURTYARD IN MONTMARTRE]

"I just must kiss you," I explained, "because the news is good!"

From one end to the other of the entire social scale the children have
this self same spirit.

Seated at the dining-room table, a big spot of violet ink on one cheek,
I found little Jules Gauthier carefully copying something in a note
book.

"What are you doing there, Jules?"

"Writing in my book, Madame."

"What are you writing?"

"About the war, everything I can remember."

At that particular moment he was inscribing an anecdote which he had
just heard some one telling in his mother's drawing room.

"The President of the Republic once asked General de Castelnau, 'Well,
General, what shall you do after the war is over?'

"'Weep for my sons, Mr. President.'"

"But, Jules, why do you write such things?" I queried.

"Because it's splendid, and I put down everything I know or hear that's
beautiful or splendid."

And true enough, pele mele with portraits he had cut out and pasted,
plans for aeroplanes that he had drawn, were copies of extraordinary
citations for bravery, memorable dates and descriptions of battles.

In the Summer of 1915, my friend Jeanne took her small baby and her
daughter Annette, aged five, to their little country home on the
seashore in Brittany. The father, over military age, remained in town
to look after some patriotic work.

Help was hard to get, and Jeanne not over strong was torn between
household duties and her infant son, so that Annette, clad in a bathing
suit and sweater, spent most of her time on the beach in company with
other small people of her own years.

Astonished at seeing the little one so much alone, certain kind-hearted
mothers invited her to partake of their bread, chocolate and other
dainties provided for the gouter of their own offspring, and as the
child gladly and continually accepted, her apparent abandon became a
subject of conversation, and they decided to question Annette.

"Where is your mother, dear?"

"She's home, very ill."

"Oh, really. I'm so sorry, what's the trouble--nothing serious, I
hope?"

"I think it must be--you see she has had her three brothers killed and
now grandpa has enlisted."

"Dear me, how terrible! And your papa?"

"Oh, he's in town working for the government. One of his brothers was
killed and the other is blind. Poor old grandma died of the shock."

Moved by the lamentable plight of so young a mother, the good ladies
sought to penetrate her seclusion, offer their condolences, and help
lift the cloud of gloom.

Imagine then their surprise at being received by my smiling,
blond-haired friend, who failed to comprehend their mournful but
astonished looks.

At length Annette's story was brought to light, and Jeanne could but
thank them for their trouble, at the same time explaining that neither
she nor her husband had ever had brothers, and that their parents had
been dead these many years.

"You naughty, wicked girl!" scolded Jeanne, as her tearful progeny was
led forward. "You wicked, wicked girl--what made you tell such lies?"

The culprit twisted her hands; her whole body fairly convulsed with
restrained sobs.

"Answer me at once! Do you hear me?"

Annette hesitated, and then throwing herself in her mother's arms,
blurted out, "Oh, mamma, I just couldn't help it! All the others were
so proud of their _poilus_, and I haven't any one at the front; not
even a god-son!"

It seems highly probable that children who have received such an
education will ultimately form a special generation. Poor little
things who never knew what "play" meant, at a time when life should
have been all sunshine and smiles; tender, sensitive creatures brought
up in an atmosphere of privation and tears.

Those who were between ten and fifteen years of age at the outbreak of
the war have had a particularly hard time.

In the smaller trades and industries, as well as on the farms, with a
father or an elder brother absent, these youngsters have been obliged
to leave school or college, and hasten to the counter or the plough.
And not only have they been called upon to furnish the helping hand,
but in times of moral stress they have often had to give proof of a
mature judgment, a courage, a will power, and a forebearance far beyond
their years.

After a ten months' absence, when I opened up my Parisian home, I found
it necessary to change or replace certain electric lighting
arrangements. As usual I called up the Maison Bincteux.

"_Bien, Madame_, I shall send some one to look after it."

The next morning my maid announced _La Maison Bincteux_.

When I reached the hallway, I found the aforesaid _Maison_ to be a lad
some fifteen years old, who might easily have passed for twelve, so
slight was his build. His long, pale, oval face, which seemed almost
unhealthy, was relieved by a pair of snapping blue eyes.

"Did you bring a letter?"

"Oh, no, Madame, I am Monsieur Bincteux's son."

"Then your father is coming later?"

"Oh, no, Madame, he can't, he is mechanician in the aviation corps at
Verdun. My oldest brother is in the artillery, and the second one has
just left for the front--so I quit school and am trying to help mother
continue the business."

"How old are you?"

"I belong to the Class of 1923," came the proud reply.

"Oh, I see. Come right in then, I'll show you what I need."

With a most serious and important air he produced a note book, tapped
on the partitions, sounded the walls, took measures and jotted down a
few lines.

"Very well, Madame, I've seen all that's necessary. I'll be back
to-morrow morning with a workman."

True to his word he appeared the next day, accompanied by a decrepit,
coughing, asthmatic specimen of humanity, who was hardly worthy of the
honorable title his employer had seen fit to confer.

Our studio is extremely high, and when it was necessary to stretch out
and raise our double extension ladder, it seemed as though disaster
were imminent.

We offered our assistance, but from the glance he launched us, I felt
quite certain that we had mortally offended the manager of the _Maison
Bincteux_. He stiffened every muscle, gave a supreme effort, and up
went the ladder. Truly his will power, his intelligence and his
activity were remarkable.

After surveying the undertaking, he made his calculations, and then
addressing his aid:

"We'll have to bore here," he said. "The wires will go through there,
to the left and we'll put the switches to the right, just above; go
ahead with the work and I'll be back in a couple of hours."

The old man mumbled something disobliging.

"Do what I tell you and don't make any fuss about it. You're better
off here than in the trenches, aren't you? We've heard enough from
you, old slacker."

The idea that any one dare insinuate that he ought to be at the front
at his age, fairly suffocated the aid electrician, who broke into a fit
of coughing.

"Madame, Madame," he gasped. "In the trenches? Why I'm seventy-three.
I've worked for his father and grandfather before him--but I've never
seen his like! Why only this very morning he was grumbling because I
didn't ride a bicycle so we could get to places faster!"

At noon the _Maison Bincteux_ reappeared, accompanied by the General
Agent of the Electric Company. He discussed matters in detail with
this awe inspiring person--objected, retaliated, and finally terminated
his affairs, leaving us a few moments later, having accomplished the
best and most rapid job of its kind I have ever seen.

With the Class of 1919 now behind the lines, by the time this volume
goes to press, there is little doubt but that the class of 1920 shall
have been called to the colours. All these lads are the little fellows
we used to know in short trousers; the rascals who not so many summers
since climbed to the house-tops, swung from trees, fell into the river,
dropped torpedoes to frighten the horses or who when punished and
locked in their rooms, would jump out the window and escape.

Then, there were those others, "the good boys," whose collars and socks
were always immaculate, romantic little natures that would kiss your
hand with so much ceremony and politeness, blushing if one addressed
them affectionately, spending whole days at a time lost in fantastic
reveries.

To us they hardly seem men. And yet they are already soldiers,
prepared to make the supreme sacrifice, well knowing from father,
brothers or friends who have gone before, all the grandeur and
abnegation through which their souls must pass to attain but an
uncertain end.

Any number of what we would call mere children have been so imbued with
the spirit of sacrifice, that they have joined the army long before
their Class was called. Madame de Martel's grandson, the sons of
Monsieur Barthou, Louis Morin, Pierre Mille, to mention but a few in
thousands, all fell on the Field of Honour before attaining their
eighteenth year.

And each family will tell you the same pathetic tale:

"We tried to interest him in his work--we provided all kinds of
amusements; did everything to keep him here; all to no avail. There
was just one thought uppermost in his mind--Enlist--Serve. He was all
we had!"

Little Jacques Krauss promised his mother he would not go until he had
won his baccalaureate, and my friend lived in the hope that all would
be over by the time the "baby" had succeeded. But, lo! the baby,
unknown to his parents, worked nights, skipped a year, passed his
examination, and left for the front, aged seventeen years and three
months! He had kept his word. What could they do?

In another household--my friends the G's., where two elder sons have
already been killed, there remained as sole heir, a pale, lanky youth
of sixteen.

With the news of his brothers' death the flame of vengeance kindled,
and then began a regime of overfeeding, physical exercises, and medical
supervision, that would have made many a stouter heart quail.

Every week the family is present when the chest measure is taken.

"Just one more centimetre, and you'll be fit!" exclaims the
enthusiastic father, while on the lashes of the smiling mother form two
bright tears which trickle unheeded down her cheeks.

There reigns a supernatural enthusiasm among all these youths; an
almost sacred fire burns in their eyes, their speech is pondered but
passionate. They are so glad, so proud to go. They know but one
fear--that of arriving too late.

"We don't want to belong to the Class that didn't fight."

And with it all they are so childlike and so simple--these heroes.

One afternoon, in a tea room near the Bon Marche, I noticed a soldier
in an obscure corner, who, his back turned to us, was finishing with
vigorous appetite, a plate of fancy cakes and pastry. (There was still
pastry in those days--1917.)

"Good!" thought I. "I'm glad to see some one who loves cakes enjoying
himself!"

The plate emptied, he waited a few minutes. Then presently he called
the attendant.

She leaned over, listened to his whispered order, smiled and
disappeared. A moment later she returned bearing a second well laden
dish.

It was not long before these cakes too had gone the way of their
predecessors.

I lingered a while anxious to see the face of this robust sweet tooth,
whose appetite had so delighted me.

He poured out and swallowed a last cup of tea, paid his bill and rose,
displaying as he turned about a pink and white beardless countenance,
that might have belonged to a boy of fifteen--suddenly grown to a man
during an attack of measles. On his breast was the _Medaille
Militaire_, and the _Croix de Guerre_, with three palms.

This mere infant must have jumped from his school to an aeroplane. At
any rate, I feel quite certain that he never before had been allowed
out alone with sufficient funds to gratify his youthful passion for
sweetmeats and, therefore, profiting by this first occasion, had
indulged himself to the limit. Can you blame him?

[1] The "Bananna"--slang for the Medaille Militaire--probably on
account of the green and yellow ribbon on which it hangs.

VIII

To go from Le Mans to Falaise, from Falaise to St. Lo; from St. Lo to
Morlaix, and thence to Poitiers would seem very easy on the map, and
with a motor, in times gone by it was a really royal itinerary, so
vastly different and picturesque are the various regions crossed. But
now that gasolene is handed out by the spoonful even to sanitary
formations, it would be just as easy for the civilian to procure a
white elephant as to dream of purchasing sufficient "gas" to make such
a trip.

There is nothing to do but take the train, and that means of locomotion
not only requires time, but patience and considerable good humour.
Railway service in France has been decidedly reduced, and while
travelling is permitted only to those persons who must needs do so, the
number of plausible motives alleged has greatly augmented, with the
result that trains are crowded to the extreme limit. To tell the
truth, a good third of the population is always moving. For how on
earth is one to prevent the parents of a wounded hero from crossing the
entire country to see him, or deny them the right to visit a lad at his
training camp?

This then accounts for the appearance of the Breton peasant's
beribboned hat and embroidered waistcoat on the promenades of the
Riviera, the Arlesian bonnet in the depths of Normandy, the Pyrenese
cap in Lorraine.

All this heterogeneous crowd forms a long line in front of the ticket
office, each one encumbered with a basket or a bag, a carpetsack or a
bundle containing pates and sausages, pastry and pickles, every known
local dainty which will recall the native village to the dear one so
far away.

It is thus that from Argentan to Caen I found myself seated between a
stout motherly person from Auvergne, and a little dark man from whose
direction was wafted so strong an odour of garlic that I had no
difficulty discerning from what region he hailed. Next to him were a
bourgeois couple whose mourning attire, red eyes and swollen faces
bespoke plainly enough the bereavement they had just suffered. Silent,
indifferent to everything and everybody, their hands spread out on
their knees, they stared into the ghastly emptiness, vainly seeking
consolation for their shattered dream, their grief-trammelled souls.

A heavily built couple of Norman farmers occupied the seats on either
side of the door, and then came a tall young girl and her mother, a
Belgian soldier, and finally a strange old creature wearing an
antiquated starched bonnet, a flowered shawl, and carrying an umbrella
such as one sees but in engravings illustrating the modes and customs
of the eighteenth century. She was literally buried beneath a
monumental basket which she insisted upon holding on her knees.

Every available inch of floor space was covered with crocks and kits
full of provisions, and in the rack above our heads were so many boxes
and bundles, bags and bales, remaining aloft by such remarkable laws of
equilibrium that I feared lest any moment they fall upon our heads, and
once this catastrophe occurred there seemed to be little hope of
extricating oneself from beneath the ruins.

The conversation was opened by the Norman farmer who offered to relieve
the little old woman of her basket and set it safely between his feet.

"_Oh, non merci_," she piped in a thin little wavering treble, and an
inimitable accent which made it impossible to guess her origin.

"Oh, no, Monsieur, thank you," she continued. "It's full of cream
tarts and cherry tarts, and custard pies made right in our own home.
I'm taking them to my boy, and as we stayed up very late to make them
so that they would be quite fresh, I should hate to have any of them
crushed or broken. He did love them so when he was little!"

"Our son was just the same. As soon as he was able to eat he begged
them to let him have some _brioche_. But his fever was too high when
we got there, and he couldn't take a thing. 'That doesn't matter,' he
said to his mother. 'Just the sight of them makes my mouth water, and
I feel better already.'"

My Provencal neighbour could no longer resist. His natural
loquaciousness got the better of his reserve.

"Well, the first thing my son asked for was olives, so I brought him
enough to last, as well as some sausage which he used to relish. Oh,
if only I could bring him a little bit of our blue sky, I'm sure he
would recover twice as quickly."

The mother of the young girl now sat forward and asked the Norman
farmer's wife where and how her son had been wounded.

"He had a splinter of shell in his left thigh. He'd been through the
whole campaign without a scratch or a day of illness."

The woman's eyes sparkled with pride and tenderness.

The short man beside me, who informed me he was a native of Beaucaire
on the Rhone, had one son wounded and being cared for in a hospital at
Caen, a second prisoner in Germany, and two sons-in-law already killed.

According to a letter which the dear old flowered shawl spelled out to
us word by word, her grandson had been wounded in seven different
places, and had had one hand and one leg amputated. But he hastened to
add that he was not worrying a bit about it.

The young girl's mother had one son in the ranks, and a second, aged
seventeen, had enlisted and was about to leave for the front. She and
her daughter were on their way to embrace him for the last time.

The Belgian soldier was just getting about after an attack of typhoid
fever, and the motherly person on my left was travelling towards her
husband, a territorial of ripe years whose long nights of vigil beneath
bridges and in the mud of the Somme had brought him down with
inflammatory rheumatism. Their son, they prayed, was prisoner--having
been reported missing since the 30th of August, 1914. This coarse,
heavy featured woman of the working classes, cherished her offspring
much as a lioness does her young. She told us she had written to the
President of the Republic, to her Congressman, her Senator, to the King
of Spain, the Norwegian Ambassador, to the Colonel of the Regiment, as
well as to all the friends of her son on whose address she had been
able to lay hand; and she would keep right on writing until she
obtained some result, some information. She could not, would not,
admit that her boy was lost; and scarcely stopping to take breath she
would ramble on at length, telling of her hopes and her disappointments
to which all the compartment listened religiously while slowly the
train rolled along through the smiling, undulating Norman country.

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