CHAPTER XIV
HOMBOURG AND RETURN
At the station we found that the Germans were masters there, too. I asked for a first-class compartment to ourselves, or for a coupé—whatever they liked, provided we were alone.
I could not make myself understood. I saw a man oiling the wheels of the carriages, who looked to me like a Frenchman. I was not mistaken. He was an old man, who had been kept on, partly out of charity and partly because he knew every nook and corner, and being Alsatian, spoke German. This good man took me to the booking office and explained my wish to have a first-class compartment to myself. The man who had charge of the ticket office burst out laughing. There was neither first nor second class, he said; it was a German train, and I should have to travel like everyone else. The wheel oiler turned purple with rage, which he quickly suppressed. (He had to keep his place. His consumptive wife was nursing their son, who had just been sent home from the hospital with his leg cut off and the wound not yet healed up. There were so many in the hospital....) All this he told me as he took me to the station master. The latter spoke French very well, but he was not at all like the other German officers I had met. He scarcely saluted me, and when I expressed my desire he replied curtly:
“It is impossible. Two places shall be reserved for you in the officers’ carriage.”
“But that is what I want to avoid,” I exclaimed. “I do not want to travel with German officers.”
“Well, then, you shall be put with German soldiers,” he growled angrily, and putting on his hat, he went out, slamming the door.
I remained there, amazed and confused by his insolence. I turned so pale, it appears, and the blue of my eyes became so clear, that Soubise, who was acquainted with my fits of anger, was very much alarmed.
“Do be calm, madame, I implore,” she said. “We are two women alone among these people. If they liked to harm us they could, and we must accomplish the aim and object of our journey, we must see little Maurice again.”
She was very clever, this charming Mlle. Soubise, and her little speech had the desired effect. To see the child again was my aim and object. I calmed down and vowed that I would not allow myself to get angry during this journey, which promised to be fertile in incidents, and I almost kept my word. I left the station master’s office and found the poor Alsatian waiting at the door. I gave him a couple of louis which he hid away quickly, and then shook my hand as though he would break it off.
“You ought not to have that so visible, madame,” he said, pointing to the little bag I had hanging at my side. “It is very dangerous.”
I thanked him, but did not pay any attention to his advice. Just as the train was about to start we entered the only first-class compartment. There were two young German officers in it. They saluted, and I took this as a good omen. The train whistled, and I thought what good luck we had had, as no one else would get in! Well, the wheels had not turned round ten times when the door opened violently, and five German officers leaped into our carriage.
We were nine then, and I thought, What torture! The station master waved a farewell to one of the officers, and both of them burst out laughing as they looked at us. I glanced at the station master’s friend. He was a surgeon major and was wearing the ambulance badge on his sleeve. His wide face was congested, and a ring of sandy, bushy beard surrounded the lower part of it. Two little bright, light-colored eyes in perpetual movement lit up this ruddy face and gave him a sly look. He was broad shouldered and thick-set, and gave one the idea of having strength without nerves. The horrid man was still laughing when the station and its station master were far away from us, but what the other one had said was evidently very droll. I was in a corner seat, with Soubise opposite me, and the two young German officers on the other side of each of us. They were both very gentle and polite, and one of them was quite delightful in his youthful charm. The surgeon major took off his helmet. He was very bald and had a very small, stubborn-looking forehead. He began to talk in a loud voice to the other officers. Our two young bodyguards took very little part in the conversation. Among the others was a tall, affected young man whom they addressed as Baron. He was slender, very elegant, and very strong. When he saw that we did not understand German, he spoke to us in English. But Soubise was too timid to answer, and I speak English very badly. He therefore resigned himself regretfully to talking French. He was agreeable, too agreeable; he certainly had not bad manners, but he was deficient in tact. I made him understand this by turning my face toward the scenery we were passing.
We were very much absorbed in our thoughts and had been traveling for a long time when I suddenly felt suffocated by smoke which was filling the carriage. I looked round and saw that the surgeon major had lighted his pipe and, with his eyes half closed, was sending up puffs of smoke to the ceiling. My throat was smarting with it, and I was choking with indignation, so that I was seized with a fit of coughing, which I exaggerated in order to attract the attention of the impolite man. The baron, however, slapped him on the knee and endeavored to make him comprehend that smoke annoyed me. He answered by an insult which I did not understand, shrugged his shoulders, and continued to smoke. Exasperated by this, I lowered the window on my side. The intense cold made itself felt in the carriage, but I preferred that to the nauseous smoke of the pipe. Suddenly the surgeon major got up, putting his hand to his ear. I then saw that his ear was filled with cotton wool. He swore like an ox-driver and, pushing past everyone, and stepping on my loot and on Soubise’s, he shut the window violently, cursing and swearing all the time—quite uselessly, for I did not understand him. He went back to his seat, continued his pipe, and sent out enormous clouds of smoke in the most insolent way. The baron and the two young Germans who had been the first in the carriage appeared to ask him something, and then to remonstrate with him, but he evidently told them to mind their own business and began to abuse them. Very much calmer myself on seeing the increasing anger of the disagreeable man, and very much amused by his earache, I again opened the window. He got up again, furious, showed me his ear and his swollen cheek, and I comprehended the word periostitis in the explanation he gave me on shutting the window again. I then made him understand that I had a weak chest and that the smoke made me cough. The baron acted as my interpreter and explained this to him. But it was easy to see that he did not care a bit about that, and he once more took up his favorite attitude and his pipe. I left him in peace for five minutes, during which time he was able to imagine himself triumphant until, with a sudden jerk of my elbow, I broke the pane of glass. Stupefaction was then depicted on the major’s face, and he became livid. He got straight up, but the two young men rose at the same time, while the baron burst out laughing in the most brutal manner. The surgeon moved a step in our direction, but he found a rampart before him; another officer had joined the two young men, and he was a strong, hardy-looking fellow, just cut out for an obstacle. I do not know what he said to the surgeon major, but it was something clear and decisive. The latter, not knowing how to expend his anger, turned on the baron, who was still laughing, and abused him so violently that the latter calmed down suddenly, and answered in such a way that I quite understood the two men were calling each other out. That affected me but little. They might very well kill each other, these two men, for they were equally ill-mannered.
The carriage was now quiet and icy cold, for the wind blew in wildly through the broken pane. The sun had set. The sky was getting cloudy. It was about half past five and we were approaching Tergnier. The major had changed seats with his friend, in order to shelter his ear as much as possible. He kept moaning like a half-dead cow.
Suddenly, the repeated whistling of a distant locomotive made us listen attentively. We then heard two, three, and four petards bursting under our wheels. We could perfectly well feel the efforts the engine driver was making to slacken speed, but before he could succeed we were thrown against each other by a frightful shock. There were cracks and creaks, the hiccoughs of the locomotive spitting out its smoke in irregular fits, desperate cries, shouts, oaths, sudden downfalls, a lull, then a thick smoke, broken by the flames of a fire. Our carriage was standing up like a horse kicking up its hind legs. It was impossible to get our balance again.
Who was wounded and who was not wounded? We were nine in the compartment. For my part, I fancied that all my bones were broken. I moved one leg and then I tried the other. Then, delighted at finding them without any broken places, I tried my arms in the same way. I had nothing broken and neither had Mlle. Soubise. She had bitten her tongue and it was bleeding, and this had frightened me. She did not seem to understand anything. The tremendous shaking up had made her dizzy, and she lost her memory for some days. I had a rather deep scratch between my eyes. I had not had time to stretch out my arms, and my forehead had knocked against the hilt of the sword which the officer seated by Soubise had been holding upright.
Assistance arrived from all sides. For some time the door of our compartment could not be opened. The darkness had come on when it finally yielded, and a lantern shone feebly on our poor, broken-up carriage. I looked round for our one bag, but on finding it I let it go immediately, for my hand was red with blood. Whose blood was it? Three men did not move, and one of them was the major. His face looked to me livid. I closed my eyes, in order not to know, and I let the man who had come to our aid pull me out of the compartment. One of the young officers got out after me. He took Soubise, who was almost in a fainting condition, from his friend. The imbecile baron then got out; his shoulder was out of joint. A doctor came forward among the rescuers. The baron held his arm out to him and told him to pull it, which he did at once. The French doctor took off the officer’s cloak, told two of the railway men to hold him, and then, pushing against him himself, pulled at the poor arm. The baron was very pale and gave a low whistle. When the arm was back in its place the doctor shook the baron’s other hand. “Cristi!” he said, “I must have hurt you very much. You have a precious lot of courage.” The German saluted and I helped him on again with his cloak.
The doctor was then fetched away, and I saw that he was taken back to our compartment. I shuddered in spite of myself. We were now able to find out what had been the cause of our accident. A locomotive attached to two vans of coal had been shunting, in order to get on to the siding and let us pass, when one of the vans got off the rails and the locomotive tired its lungs with whistling the alarm, while men ran to meet us scattering petards. Everything had been in vain, and we had run against the overturned van.
What were we to do? The soft roads were all broken up by the cannon. We were about four miles from Tergnier, and a fine, penetrating rain was making our clothes stick to our bodies.
There were four carriages, but the wounded had to be conveyed. Other carriages would come, but there were the dead to be carried away. An improvised litter was just being borne along by two workmen. The major was lying on it, so livid that I clenched my hands until my nails entered the flesh. One of the officers wanted to question the doctor who was following.
“Oh, no!” I exclaimed, “please, please do not. I do not want to know. The poor fellow!”
I stopped my ears as though some one was about to shout out something horrible to me, and I never knew his fate.
We were obliged to resign ourselves to setting out on foot. We went about two kilometers as bravely as possible, and then I stopped quite exhausted. The mud which clung to our shoes made them very heavy. The effort we had to make at every step to get each foot out of the dirt tired us out. I sat down on a milestone and declared that I would not go any farther.
My companion wept, and the two young German officers, who had acted as bodyguards, made a seat for me by crossing their hands, and we went nearly another mile like that. My companion could not walk any farther. I offered her my place, but she refused it. “Well, then, let us wait here!” I said, and quite at the end of our strength, we rested against a little broken tree.
It was now night, and such a cold night! Huddled close to Soubise, trying to keep warm, I began to fall asleep, seeing before my eyes the wounded men of Châtillon, who had died seated against the little shrubs. I did not want to move again, and the torpor seemed to me thoroughly delicious.
A cart passed by, however, on its way to Tergnier. One of the young men hailed it and, when the terms were made, I felt myself picked up from the ground, lifted into the vehicle and carried along by the jerky, rolling movement of two loose wheels which climbed the hills, sank into the mire, and jumped over the heaps of stones, while the driver whipped up his beasts and urged them on with his voice. He had a “don’t care, let what will happen” way of driving, which was quite the note of the times. I was aware of all this in my semi-sleep, for I was not really asleep, but I did not want to answer any questions. I gave myself up to this prostration of my whole being with a certain enjoyment.
A rough jerk, however, indicated that we had arrived at Tergnier. The cart had drawn up at the hotel, and we had to get out. I pretended to be still asleep. But it was no use, I had to wake up. The two young men helped me up to my room.
I asked Soubise to arrange about the payment of the cart before the departure of our excellent young companions, who were sorry to leave us. I signed for each of them a voucher, on a sheet of the hotel paper, for a photograph. Only one of them ever claimed it. This was six years later, and I sent it to him.
The Tergnier Hotel could only give us one room between us. I let Soubise go to bed, and I slept in an armchair, dressed as I was. The following morning I asked about a train for Cateau, but was told that there was no train. We had to work marvels to get a vehicle, but finally, Dr. Meunier, or Mesnier, agreed to lend us a two-wheeled conveyance. That was something, but there was no horse. The poor doctor’s horse had been requisitioned by the enemy. A wheelwright, for an exorbitant price, let me hire a colt that had never been in the shafts, and which went wild when the harness was put on. The poor little beast calmed down after being well lashed, but his wildness then changed into stubbornness. He stood still on his four legs, which were trembling with fury, and refused to move. With his neck stretched forward toward the ground, his eye fixed, and his nostrils dilating, he would not budge any more than a stake in the earth. Two men then held the light carriage back, the halter was taken off the colt’s neck, he shook his head for an instant and, thinking himself free and without any impediments, he began to step out. The men were scarcely holding the vehicle. He gave two little kicks and then began to trot. It was only a very short trot. A boy then stopped him, some carrots were given to him, his mane was stroked, and the halter was put on again. He stopped suddenly, but the boy, jumping into the gig and holding the reins lightly, spoke to him and encouraged him to move on. The colt tried timidly and, not feeling any resistance, began to trot along for about a quarter of an hour, and then came back to us at the door of the hotel. I had to leave a deposit of four hundred francs with the notary of the place, in case the colt should die.
Ah, what a journey that was with the boy! Soubise and I sitting close together in that little gig, the wheels of which creaked at every jolt! The unhappy colt was steaming like a pot-au-feu when the lid is raised. We started at eleven in the morning, and when we had to stop, because of the poor beast who could not go any farther, it was five in the afternoon and we had not gone five miles. Oh, that poor colt, he was certainly to be pitied! We were not very heavy, all three of us together, but we were too much for him. We were just a few yards away from a sordid-looking house. I knocked and an enormous old woman opened the door.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Hospitality for an hour and shelter for our horse.”
She looked out on the road and saw our turnout. “Hey, father,” she called out in a husky voice, “come and look here!”
A fat man, quite as fat, but older than she was, came hobbling heavily along. She pointed to the gig, so oddly equipped, and he burst out laughing and said to me in an insolent way:
“Well, what do you want?”
I repeated my phrase, “Hospitality for an hour, etc., etc.”
“P’raps we can do it, but it’ll want paying for.”
I showed him twenty francs. The old woman gave him a nudge.
“Oh, but in these times, you know, it’s well worth forty francs!”
“Very good,” I said, “agreed, forty francs.”
He then let me go inside the house with Mlle. Soubise, and sent his son forward to the boy, who was coming along holding the colt by his mane. He had taken off the halter very considerately, and thrown my rug over its steaming sides. On reaching the house, the poor beast was quickly unharnessed, and taken into a little inclosure, at the far end of which a few badly joined planks served as a stable for an old mule, which was aroused by the fat woman with kicks, and turned out into the inclosure. The colt took its place, and when I asked for some oats for it she replied: “P’raps we could get it some, but that isn’t in the price of the forty francs.”
“Very well,” I said; and I gave our boy five francs to fetch the oats, but the old shrew took the money from him and handed it to her lad, saying: “You go, you know where to find them, and come back quick.”
Our boy stayed with the colt, drying it and rubbing it down as well as he could. I went back to the house, where I found my charming Soubise with her sleeves turned up, and her delicate hands washing two glasses and two plates for us. I asked if it would be possible to have some eggs.
“Yes, but——”
I interrupted our monstrous hostess.
“Don’t tire yourself, madame, I beg,” I said. “It is understood that the forty francs are your tip and that I am to pay for everything else.”
She was confused for a moment, shaking her head and trying to find words, but I asked her to give me the eggs. She brought me five eggs and I began to prepare my omelette, as my culinary glory is an omelette.
The water was nauseous, so we drank cider. I sent for the boy and let him have something to eat in our presence, for I was afraid that the ogress would give him too economical a meal.
When I paid the fabulous bill of seventy-five francs, inclusive, of course, of the forty francs, the matron put on her spectacles and, taking one of the gold pieces, looked at it on one side, then on the other, made it ring on a plate and then on the ground. She did this with each of the three gold pieces. I could not help laughing. “Oh, there’s nothing to laugh at!” she grunted. “For the last six months we’ve had nothing but thieves here.”
“And you know something about theft!” I said.
She looked at me, trying to make out what I meant, but the laughing expression in my eyes took away her suspicions. This was very fortunate, as they were people capable of doing us harm. I had taken the precaution, when sitting down to table, of putting my revolver near me.
“You know how to fire that?” asked the lame man.
“Oh, yes, I shoot very well!” I answered, but this was not true. Our steed was then put in again in a few seconds, and we proceeded on our way. The colt appeared to be quite joyful. He stamped, kicked a little, and began to go at a pretty steady pace. Our disagreeable hosts had told us the way to St. Quentin, and we set off, after our poor colt had made attempts to stand still. I was dead tired and fell asleep, but after about an hour the vehicle stopped abruptly, and the wretched beast began to snort and put his back up, supporting himself on his four stiff, trembling legs.
It had been a gloomy day, and a lowering sky seemed to be shedding tears slowly over the earth. We had stopped in the middle of a field, which had been plowed up all over by the heavy wheels of cannon. The rest of the ground had been trampled by horses’ feet, and the cold had hardened the little ridges of earth, leaving icicles here and there which glittered dismally in the thick atmosphere.
We got down from the vehicle to try to discover what was making our little animal tremble in this way. I gave a cry of horror for, only about five yards away, some dogs were pulling wildly at a dead body, half of which was still underground. It was a soldier and, fortunately, one of the enemy. I took the whip from our young driver and lashed the horrid animals as hard as I could. They moved away for a second, showing their teeth, and then returned to their voracious and abominable work, growling sullenly at us.
Our boy got down and led the snorting pony by the bridle. We went on with some difficulty, trying to find the road in these devastated plains. Darkness came over us and it was icy cold. The moon feebly pushed aside her veils and shone over the landscape with a wan, sad light. I was half dead with fright. It seemed to me that the silence was broken by cries from underground, and every little mound of earth appeared to me to be a head. Soubise was crying, with her face hidden in her hands. After going along for half an hour, we saw, in the distance, a little group of people coming along carrying lanterns. I went toward them, as I wanted to find out which way to go. I was embarrassed on getting nearer to them, for I could hear sobs. I saw a poor woman, who was very corpulent, being helped along by a young priest. The whole of her body was shaken by her fits of grief. She was followed by two subofficers and by three other persons. I let her pass by, and then questioned those who were following her. I was told that she was looking for the bodies of her husband and son, who had both been killed a few days before on the St. Quentin plains. She came each day at dusk, in order to avoid inquisitive people, and she had not yet met with any success. It was hoped that she would find them this time, as one of these subofficers, who had just left the hospital, was taking them to the spot where he had seen the poor creature’s husband fall, mortally wounded. He had fallen there himself, and had been picked up by the ambulance people.
I thanked these persons, who told me the wretched road we must take, the best one there was, lay through this cemetery.
We could now distinguish groups of people searching about, and it was all so horrible that it made me want to scream out.
Suddenly, the boy who was driving us pulled my coat sleeve.
“Oh, madame,” he said, “look at that scoundrel stealing!”
I looked and saw a man lying down full length, with a large bag near him. He had a dark lantern, which he held toward the ground. He then got up, looked around him, for his outline could be seen distinctly on the horizon, and began his work again.
When he caught sight of us he put out his lamp, and crouched down on the ground. We walked on in silence straight toward him. I took the colt by the bridle, on the other side from the boy, who no doubt understood my idea, for he let himself be guided by me. I walked straight toward the man, pretending not to know he was there. The colt backed, but we pulled hard and made it advance. We were so near to him that I shuddered at the thought that the wretch would perhaps allow himself to be trampled over by the animal and the light vehicle rather than reveal his presence. Fortunately, though, I was mistaken; a stifled voice murmured:
“Take care there! I am wounded. You will run over me.” I took the gig lantern down. We had covered it with a jacket, as the moon lighted us better, and I turned it now on the face of this wretch. I was stupefied to see a man of from sixty-five to seventy years of age, with a hollow-looking face, framed with long, dirty, white whiskers. He had a muffler round his neck, and was wearing a peasant’s cloak of a dark color. Around him, shown up by the moon, were sword belts, brass buttons, sword hilts, and other objects that the infamous old man had torn from the poor dead men.
“You are not wounded. You are a thief, and a violator of tombs! I shall call out and you will be killed. Do you hear that, you miserable wretch!” I exclaimed, and went so near to him that I could feel his breath sully mine. He crouched down on his knees, and, clasping his criminal hands, implored me in a trembling, tearful voice.
“Leave your bag there, then,” I said, “and all those things. Empty your pockets, leave everything and go. Run, for as soon as you are out of sight I shall call one of those soldiers who are searching, and I shall give them your plunder. I know I am doing wrong, though, in letting you off and not giving you up.”
He emptied his pockets, groaning all the time, and was just going away when the lad whispered: “He’s hiding some boots under his cloak.” I was furious with rage with this vile thief and I pulled his big cloak off.
“Leave everything, you wretched man,” I exclaimed, “or I will call out.”
Six pairs of boots, taken from the corpses, fell noisily on to the hard ground. The man stooped down for his revolver, which he had taken out of his pocket at the same time as the stolen objects.
“Will you leave that, and get away quickly?” I said, “my patience is at an end.”
“But if I am caught I shan’t be able to defend myself,” he exclaimed, in a fit of desperate rage.
“It will be because God willed it so,” I answered. “Go at once or I will call.” The man then made off, abusing me as he went.
Our little driver then fetched a soldier to whom I related the adventure, showing him the objects.
“Which way did the rascal go?” asked a sergeant who had come with the soldier.
“I can’t say,” I replied.
“Oh, well, I don’t care to run after him,” he said, “there are enough dead men here.”
We continued our way until we came to a place where several roads met, and it was then possible for us to take a road a little more suitable for vehicles.
After going through Busigny, and a wood, where there were bogs in which we only just escaped being swallowed up, our painful journey came to an end, and we arrived at Cateau in the night, half dead with fatigue, fright, and despair.
I was obliged to take a day’s rest there, for I was prostrate with feverishness. We had two little rooms, roughly whitewashed but quite clean. The floor was of red, shiny bricks, and there was a polished wood bed, and curtains of white sateen.
I sent for a doctor for my nice little Mlle. Soubise, who, it seemed to me, was worse than I was. He thought we were both in a very bad state, though. A nervous feverishness had taken all the use out of my limbs and made my head burn. Soubise could not keep still, but kept seeing specters and fires, hearing shouts, and turning round quickly, imagining that some one had touched her on the shoulder. The good man gave us a soothing draught to overcome our fatigue, and the next day a very hot bath brought back the suppleness to our limbs. It was then six days since we had left Paris, and it would take about twenty more hours to reach Hombourg, for in those days trains went much less quickly than at present. I took the train for Brussels, where I was counting on buying a trunk, and a few necessary things.
From Cateau to Brussels there was no hindrance to our journey, and we were able to take the train again the same evening.
I had replenished our wardrobe, which certainly needed it, and we continued our journey without much difficulty as far as Cologne, although on passing through Strasbourg I had a nervous attack from sorrow and despair. On arriving at Cologne we had a cruel disappointment. The train had only just entered the station, when a railway official, passing quickly in front of the carriages, shouted something in German, which I did not catch. Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, and men and women pushed each other without any courtesy. I addressed another official and showed him our tickets. He took up my bag very obligingly, and hurried after the crowd. We followed, but I did not understand the excitement, until the man flung my bag into a compartment, and signed to me to get in as quickly as possible. Mlle. Soubise was already on the step, when she was pushed aside violently by a railway porter, who slammed the door, and before I was fully aware of what had happened, the train had disappeared. My bag had gone in the carriage, and my trunk was with all the other trunks, in a luggage van that had been unhooked from the train which had arrived and fastened on to the express which had left. I began to cry with rage. An official took pity on us and led us to the station master. He was a very superior sort of man, who spoke French fairly well. I sank down in his great leather armchair, and told him my misadventure, sobbing nervously. He looked kind and sympathetic. He immediately telegraphed for my bag and trunk to be given into the care of the station master at the first station. “You will have them again to-morrow, toward midday,” he said.
“Then I cannot start this evening?” I asked.
“Oh, no, that is impossible,” he replied. “There is no train, for the express that will take you to Hombourg does not start before to-morrow morning.”
“O God, God!” I exclaimed, and I was seized with veritable despair, which soon affected Mlle. Soubise, too.
The poor station master was rather embarrassed and tried to soothe me. “Do you know anyone here?” he asked.
“No, no one. I have only been to Baden-Baden. That was three years ago, and I do not know anyone in Cologne.”
“Well, then, I will have you driven to the Hôtel du Nord. My sister-in-law has been there for two days and she will look after you.”