On the Edge of the War Zone | Page 6

sheep, droves
of cattle, carts with pigs in them, people in carts leading now and then a
cow, families on foot, carrying cats in baskets, and leading dogs and
goats and children, climb the long hill from Couilly, or thread the
footpaths on the canal.
They fled in silence. I remember as remarkable that no one talked. I
cannot say that they are coming back exactly gaily, but, at any rate,

they have found their tongues. The slow procession has been passing
for a fortnight now, and at almost any hour of the day, as I sit at my
bedroom window, I can hear the distant murmur of their voices as they
mount the hill.
I can't help thinking what some of them are going to find out there in
the track of the battle. But it is a part of the strange result of war, borne
in on me by my own frame of mind, that the very fact that they are
going back to their own hearths seems to reconcile them to anything.
Of course these first people to return are mostly the poorer class, who
did not go far. Their speedy return is a proof of the morale of the
country, because they would surely not have been allowed to come
back by the military authorities if the general conviction was not that
the German advance had been definitely checked. Isn't it wonderful? I
can't get over it.
Even before they began to return, the engineers were at work repairing
the bridges as far as Chalons, and the day I wrote to you last week,
when Amélie went down the hill to mail your letter, she brought back
the news that the English engineers were sitting astride the telegraph
poles, pipes in mouth, putting up the wires they cut down a fortnight
ago. The next day our post-office opened, and then I got newspapers. I
can tell you I devoured them. I read Joffre's order of the day. What
puzzled me was that it was dated on the morning of September 6, yet
we, with our own eyes, saw the battle begin at noon on the 5th,--a
battle which only stopped at nine that night, to begin again at four the
next morning. But I suppose history will sometime explain that.
Brief as the news was in the papers, it was exciting to know that the
battle we had seen and heard was really a decisive fight, and that it was
considered won by the English and French--in a rainstorm--as long ago
as the 10th, and that the fighting to the east of us had been far more
terrible than here.
I suppose long before this our myriads of "special telegraph" men have
sent you over details and anecdotes such as we shall never see. We get
a meagre "communiqué official" and have to be content with that. It is
now and then hard for me, who have been accustomed to something
different.
None of our shops is open yet. Indeed almost no one has returned to
Couilly; and Meaux, they say, is still deserted. Yet I cannot honestly

say that I have suffered for anything. I have an abundance of fruit. We
have plenty of vegetables in Père's garden. We have milk and eggs.
Rabbits and chickens run about in the roads simply asking to be potted.
There is no petrol, but I, luckily, had a stock of candles, and I love
candlelight--it suits my house better than lamps. It is over a fortnight
since we had sugar or butter or coffee. I have tea. I never would have
supposed that I could have got along so well and not felt deprived. I
suppose we always have too much--I've had the proof. Perhaps had
there been anyone with me I should have felt it more. Being alone I did
not give it a thought.
Sunday afternoon, the weather being still fine and the distant booming
of the cannon making reading or writing impossible--I am not yet
habituated to it--I went for a walk. I took the road down the hill in the
direction of the Marne. It is a pretty walk--not a house all the way.
It leads along what is called the Pavé du Roi, dropping down into the
plain of the valley, through the woods, until the wheat fields are
reached, and then rising from the plain, gently, to the high suspension
bridge which crosses the canal, two minutes beyond which lies the river,
here very broad and sluggish.
This part of the canal, which is perfectly straight from Condé to Meaux,
is unusually pretty. The banks are steep, and "tall poplar trees" cast
long shadows across grass-edged footpaths, above which the high
bridge is swung. There is no bridge here across the Marne; the nearest