Part 33

It would not be right of me to indicate the present position of the British troops or describe the great scenes at their base, which is now removed to a position which enables our forces to hold the eastern approach to Paris. It is a wonderful sight to pass the commissariat camp, where, among other munitions of war, is a park of British aeroplanes, which are of vital importance to our work of reconnoissance.

Looking, therefore, at the extraordinary transformation throughout the field of war in France, one thing stands out clear-cut and distinct. Having been thwarted in their purpose to walk through the western way to Paris by the enormous forces massed on their flanks, the Germans have adopted an entirely new plan of campaign and have thrust their armies deep down into the centre of France in order to divide the western armies of the Allies from the army on the eastern frontier. It is a menacing manoeuvre, and it cannot be hidden that the army of Lorraine is in danger of being cut off by the enemy's armies of the left.

At the same time the German right is swinging round in a southwesterly direction in order to attack the allied forces on the east and south. Paris is thus left out of account for the time being, but it depends upon the issues of the next few days whether the threatened peril will be averted from it by the immense army now protecting it. I believe the spirit of our own troops and their French comrades is so splendid that with their new strength they will be equal to that formidable attack.

Nothing certainly is being left to chance. For miles all around Paris trenches are being dug in the roads, and little sectional trenches on the broad roads of France, first one on this side of the way, and then one on the other side, so that a motor car traveling along the road has to drive in a series of sharp curves to avoid pitfalls.

There was feverish activity on the west side of the Paris fortifications when I passed between St. Germain and St. Denis.

Earthworks are being constantly thrown up between the forts, and the triple curves of the Seine are being intrenched so that thousands of men may take cover there and form a terrific defense against any attack.

Gen. Gallieni, the Military Governor of Paris, is a man of energy and iron resolution, and no doubt under his command Paris, if it has to undergo a siege, (which God avert!) will defend itself well, now that it has had these precious days of respite.

After wandering along the westerly and southerly roads I started for Paris when thousands and scores of thousands were flying from it. At that time I believed, as all France believed, that in a few hours German shells would be crashing across the fortifications of the city and that Paris the beautiful would be Paris the infernal. It needed a good deal of resolution on my part to go deliberately to a city from which the population was fleeing, and I confess quite honestly that I had a nasty sensation in the neighborhood of my waistcoat buttons at the thought.

Along the road from Tours to Paris there were sixty unbroken miles of people--on my honor, I do not exaggerate, but write the absolute truth. They were all people who had despaired of breaking through the dense masses of their fellow-citizens camped around the railway stations, and had decided to take to the roads as the only way of escape.

The vehicles were taxicabs, for which the rich paid fabulous prices; motor cars which had escaped military requisition, farmers' carts laden with several families and piles of household goods, shop carts drawn by horses already tired to the point of death because of the weight of the people who crowded behind pony traps and governess carts.

Many persons, well dressed and belonging obviously to well-to-do bourgeoisie, were wheeling barrows like costers, but instead of trundling cabbages were pushing forward sleeping babies and little children, who seemed on the first stage to find new amusement and excitement in the journey from home; but for the most part they trudged along bravely, carrying their babies and holding the hands of their little ones.

They were of all classes, rank and fortune being annihilated by the common tragedy. Elegant women whose beauty is known in Paris salons, whose frivolity, perhaps, in the past was the main purpose of their life, were now on a level with the peasant mothers of the French suburbs and with the midinettes of Montmartre, and their courage did not fail them so quickly.

I looked into many proud, brave faces of these delicate women, walking in high-heeled shoes, all too frail for the hard-dusty roadways. They belonged to the same race and breed as those ladies who defied death with fine disdain upon the scaffold of the guillotine in the great Revolution.

They were leaving Paris now, not because of any fears for themselves--I believe they were fearless--but because they had decided to save the little sons and daughters of soldier fathers.

This great army in retreat was made up of every type familiar in Paris.

Here were women of the gay world, poor creatures whose painted faces had been washed with tears, and whose tight skirts and white stockings were never made for a long march down the highways of France.

Here also were thousands of those poor old ladies who live on a few francs a week in the top attics of the Paris streets, which Balzac knew; they had fled from their poor sanctuaries and some of them were still carrying cats and canaries, as dear to them as their own lives.

There was one young woman who walked with a pet monkey on her shoulder while she carried a bird in a golden cage. Old men, who remembered 1870, gave their arms to old ladies to whom they had made love when the Prussians were at the gates of Paris then.

It was pitiful to see these old people now hobbling along together. Pitiful, but beautiful also, because of their lasting love.

Young boy students, with ties as black as their hats and rat-tail hair, marched in small companies of comrades, singing brave songs, as though they had no fear in their hearts, and very little food, I think, in their stomachs.

Shopgirls and concierges, city clerks, old aristocrats, young boys and girls, who supported grandfathers and grandmothers and carried new-born babies and gave pick-a-back rides to little brothers and sisters, came along the way of retreat.

Each human being in the vast torrent of life will have an unforgettable story of adventure to tell if life remains. As a novelist I should have been glad to get their narratives along this road for a great story of suffering and strange adventure, but there was no time for that and no excuse.

When I met many of them they were almost beyond the power of words. The hot sun of this September had beaten down upon them--scorching them as in the glow of molten metal. Their tongues clave to their mouths with thirst.

Some of them had that wild look in their eyes which is the first sign of the delirium of thirst and fatigue.

Nothing to eat or drink could be found on the way from Paris. The little roadside cafes had been cleared out by the preceding hordes.

Unless these people carried their own food and drink they could have none except of the charity of their comrades in misfortune, and that charity has exceeded all other acts of heroism in this war. Women gave their last biscuit, their last little drop of wine, to poor mothers whose children were famishing with thirst and hunger; peasant women fed other women's babies when their own were satisfied.

It was a tragic road. At every mile of it there were people who had fainted on the roadside and poor old men and women who could go no further, but sat on the banks below the hedges, weeping silently or bidding younger ones go forward and leave them to their fate. Young women who had stepped out so jauntily at first were footsore and lame, so they limped along with lines of pain about their lips and eyes.

Many of the taxicabs, bought at great prices, and many of the motor cars had broken down as I passed, and had been abandoned by their owners, who had decided to walk. Farmers' carts had bolted into ditches and lost their wheels. Wheelbarrows, too heavy to be trundled, had been tilted up, with all their household goods spilt into the roadway, and the children had been carried further, until at last darkness came, and their only shelter was a haystack in a field under the harvest moon.