diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/50497-0.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/50497-0.txt | 10454 |
1 files changed, 0 insertions, 10454 deletions
diff --git a/old/50497-0.txt b/old/50497-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index bedd6c6..0000000 --- a/old/50497-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10454 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Back to Life, by Philip Gibbs - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you’ll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Back to Life - -Author: Philip Gibbs - -Release Date: November 19, 2015 [EBook #50497] -Last Updated: November 6, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BACK TO LIFE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - - - - - - - - -BACK TO LIFE - -By Philip Gibbs - -London: William Heinemann - -1920 - - - - - -BOOK I--THE END OF THE ADVENTURE - - - - -I - - -It is hard to recapture the spirit of that day we entered Lille. Other -things since have blurred its fine images. - -At the time I tried to put down in words the picture of that scene when, -after four years’ slaughter of men, the city, which had seemed a world -away, was open to us a few miles beyond the trench-lines; the riven -trees, the shell-holes, and the stench of death, and we walked across -the canal, over a broken bridge, into that large town where--how -wonderful it seemed I--there were roofs on the houses and glass in the -windows, and crowds of civilian people waiting for the first glimpse of -British khaki. - -Even now remembrance brings back to me figures that I saw only for a -moment or two, but remain sharply etched in my mind, and people I met -in the streets who told me the story of four years in less than -four minutes and enough to let me know their bitterness, hatred, -humiliations, terrors, in the time of the German occupation.... I have -re-read the words I wrote, hastily, on a truculent typewriter which I -cursed for its twisted ribbon, while the vision of the day was in my -eyes. They are true to the facts and to what we felt about them. Other -men felt that sense of exaltation, a kind of mystical union with the -spirit of many people who had been delivered from evil powers. It is of -those other men that I am now writing, and especially of one who was my -friend--Wickham Brand, with the troubled soul, whom I knew in the years -of war and afterwards in the peace which was no peace to him. - -His, was one of the faces I remember that day, as I had a glimpse of it -now and then, among crowds of men and women, young girls and children, -who surged about him, kissing his hands and his face when he stooped a -little (he was taller than most of them) to meet the wet lips of some -half-starved baby held up by a pallid woman of Lille, or to receive the -kiss of some old woman who clawed his khaki tunic, or of some girl who -hung on to his belt. There was a shining wetness in his eyes, and the -hard lines of his face had softened as he laughed at all this turmoil -about him, at all these hands robbing him of shoulder-straps and badges, -and at all these people telling him a hundred things together--their -gratitude to the English, their hatred of the Germans, their abominable -memories. His field-cap was pushed back from his high, furrowed forehead -from which at the temples the hair had worn thin, owing to worry or a -steel hat. His long, lean face, deeply tanned, but powdered with white -dust, had an expression of tenderness which gave him a kind of priestly -look, though others would have said “knightly” with, perhaps, equal -truth. Anyhow, I could see that for a little while Brand was no longer -worrying about the casualty lists and the doom of youth, and was giving -himself up to an exaltation that was visible and spiritual in Lille in -the day of liberation. - -The few of us who went first into Lille while our troops were in a wide -are round the city, in touch, more or less, with the German rearguards, -were quickly separated in the swirl of the crowd that surged about us, -greeting us as conquering heroes, though none of us were actual fighting -men, being war correspondents, intelligence officers (Wickham Brand and -three other officers were there to establish an advanced headquarters), -with an American doctor--that amazing fellow “Daddy” Small--and our -French _liaison_ officer, Pierre Nesle. Now and again we met in the -streets and exchanged words. - -I remember the doctor and I drifted together at the end of the Boulevard -de la Liberté. A French girl of the middle-class had tucked her hand -through his right arm and was talking to him excitedly, volubly. On his -other arm leaned an old dame in a black dress and bonnet who was -also delivering her soul of its pent-up emotion to a man who did not -understand more than a few words of her French. A small boy dressed as -a Zouave was walking backwards, waving a long tricolour flag before the -little American, and a crowd of people made a close circle about him, -keeping pace. - -“Assassins, bandits, robbers!” gobbled the old woman. “They stole all -our copper, monsieur. The very mattresses off our beds. The wine out of -our cellars. They did abominations.” - -“Month after month we waited,” said the girl, with her hand through the -doctor’s right arm. “All that time the noise of the guns was loud in -our ears. It never ceased, monsieur, until to-day. And we used to -say: ‘To-morrow the English will come!’ until at last some of us lost -heart--not I, no, always I believed in victory!--and said, ‘The English -will never come!’ Now you are here, and our hearts are full of joy. It -is like a dream. The Germans have gone!” - -The doctor patted the girl’s hand and addressed me across the tricolour -waved by the small Zouave. - -“This is the greatest day of my life! And I am perfectly ashamed -of myself. In spite of my beard and my gig-lamps and my anarchical -appearance, these dear people take me for an English officer and a -fighting hero. And I feel like one. If I saw a German now I truly -believe I should cut his throat. Me--a non-combatant and a man of peace! -I’m horrified at my own blood-thirstiness. The worst of it is I’m -enjoying it. I’m a primitive man for a time, and find it stimulating. -To-morrow I shall repent. These people have suffered hell’s torments. I -can’t understand a word the little old lady is telling me but I’m sure -she’s been through infernal things. And this pretty girl. She’s a peach, -though slightly tuberculous, poor child. My God--how they hate! There is -a stored-up hatred in this town enough to burn up Germany by mental -telepathy. It’s frightening. Hatred and joy, I feel these two passions -like a flame about us. It’s spiritual. It’s transcendental. It’s the -first time I’ve seen a hundred thousand people drunk with joy and hate. -I’m against hate, and yet the sufferings of these people make me see red -so that I want to cut a German throat!” - -“You’d stitch it up afterwards, doctor,” I said. - -He blinked at me through his spectacles and said: “I hope so. I hope -my instinct would be as right as that. The world will never get forward -till we have killed hatred. That’s my religion.” - -“Bandits! Assassins!” grumbled the old lady. “Dirty people!” - -“_Vivent les Anglais!_” shouted the crowd, surging about the little man -with the beard. - -The American doctor spoke in English in a large explanatory way. - -“I’m American. Don’t you go making any mistake. I’m an Uncle Sam. The -Yankee boys are further south and fighting like hell, poor lads. I don’t -deserve any of this ovation, my dears.” - -Then in French, with a strong American accent, he shouted: “_Vive la -France!_‘Rah! ‘Rah! ‘Rah!” - -“_Merci, merci, mon Général!_” said an old woman, making a grab at the -little doctor’s Sam Brown belt and kissing him on the beard. The crowd -closed round him and bore him away.... - -I met another of our crowd when I went to a priest’s house in a turning -off the Rue Royale. Pierre Nesle, our _liaison_ officer--a nice simple -fellow, who had always been very civil to me--was talking to the -priest outside his door, and introduced me in a formal way to a tall, -patrician-looking old man in a long black gown. It was the Abbé Bourdin, -well known in Lille as a good priest and a patriot. - -“Come indoors, gentlemen,” said the old man. “I will tell you what -happened to us, though it would take four years to tell you all.” - -Sitting there in the priest’s room, barely furnished, with a few oak -chairs and a writing-desk littered with papers, and a table covered with -a tattered cloth of red plush, we listened to a tragic tale, told finely -and with emotion by the old man into whose soul it had burned. It was -the history of a great population caught by the tide of war before many -could escape, and placed under the military law of an enemy who tried to -break its spirit. They failed to break it in spite of an iron discipline -which denied them all liberty. For any trivial offence by individuals -against German rule the whole population was fined or shut up in their -houses at three in the afternoon. There were endless fines, unceasing -and intolerable robberies under the name of “perquisitions.” That had -not broken the people’s spirit. There were worse things to bear--the -removal of machinery from the factories, the taking away of the young -men and boys for forced labour, and then, the greater infancy of that -night when machine-guns were placed at the street corners and German -officers ordered each household to assemble at the front door and chose -the healthy-looking girls by the pointing of a stick and the word, -“You--you!” for slave-labour--it was that--in unknown fields far away. - -The priest’s face blanched at the remembrance of that scene. His voice -quavered when he spoke of the girls’ screams--one of them had gone -raving mad--and of the wailing that rose among their stricken families. -For a while he was silent, with lowered head and brooding eyes which -stared at a rent in the threadbare carpet, and I noticed the trembling -of a pulse on his right temple above the deeply-graven wrinkles of his -parchment skin. Then he raised his head and spoke harshly. - -“Not even that could break the spirit of my people. They only said, ‘We -will never forget and never forgive!’ They were hungry--we did not -get much food--but they said, ‘Our sons who are fighting for us -are suffering worse things. It is for us to be patient.’ They were -surrounded by German spies--the secret police--who listened to their -words and haled them off to prison upon any pretext. There is hardly -a man among us who has not been in prison. The women were made to do -filthy work for German soldiers, to wash their lousy clothes, to scrub -their dirty barracks, and they were insulted, humiliated, tempted, by -brutal men.” - -“Was there much of that brutality?” I asked. - -The priest’s eyes grew sombre. - -“Many women suffered abominable things. I thank God that so many kept -their pride and their honour. There were, no doubt, some bad men and -women in the city--disloyal, venal, weak, sinful--may God have mercy -on their souls; but I am proud of being a Frenchman when I think of how -great was the courage, how patient was the suffering of the people of -Lille.” - -Pierre Nesle had listened to that monologue with a visible and painful -emotion. He became pale and flushed by turns, and when the priest spoke -about the forcible recruitment of the women a sweat broke out on his -forehead, and he wiped it away with a handkerchief. - -I see his face now in profile, sharply outlined against some yellowing -folios in a bookcase behind him, a typical Parisian face in its -sharpness of outline and pallid skin, with a little black moustache -above a thin, sensitive mouth. Before I had seen him mostly in gay -moods--though I had wondered sometimes at the sudden silences into which -he fell and at a gloom which gave him a melancholy look when he was -not talking, or singing, or reciting poetry, or railing against French -politicians, or laughing almost hysterically at the satires of -Charles Fortune--our “funny man”--when he came to our mess. Now he was -suffering, as if the priest’s words had probed a wound--though not the -physical wound which had nearly killed him in Souchez Wood. - -He stood up from the wooden chair with its widely-curved arms in which -he had been sitting stiffly, and spoke to the priest. - -“It is not amusing, _mon père_, what you tell us, and what we have all -guessed. It is one more chapter of tragedy in the history of our poor -France. Pray God the war will soon be over.” - -“With victory!” said the old priest. “With an enemy beaten and bleeding -beneath our feet. The Germans must be punished for all their crimes, or -the justice of God will not be satisfied.” - -There was a thrill of passion in the old man’s voice and his nostrils -quivered. - -“To all Frenchmen that goes without saying,” said Pierre Nesle. “The -Germans must be punished, and will be, though no vengeance will repay us -for the suffering of our _poilus_--nor for the agony of our women behind -the lines, which, perhaps, was the greatest of all.” - -The Abbé Bourdin put his claw-like old hands on the young man’s -shoulders and drew him closer and kissed his Croix de Guerre. - -“You have helped to give victory,” he said. “How many Germans have you -killed? How many, eh?” - -He spoke eagerly, chuckling with a kind of childish eagerness for good -news. - -Pierre Nesle drew back a little and a faint touch of colour crept into -his face, and then left it whiter. - -“I did not count corpses,” he said. He touched his left side and laughed -awkwardly. “I remember better that they nearly made a corpse of me.” - -There was a moment’s silence, and then my friend spoke in a casual kind -of way. - -“I suppose, _mon père_, you have not heard of my sister being in Lille -by any chance? Her name was Marthe. Marthe Nesle.” - -The Abbé Bourdin shook his head. - -“I do not know the name. There are many young women in Lille. It is a -great city.” - -“That is true,” said Pierre Nesle. “There are many.” - -He bowed over the priest’s hand, and then saluted. - -“_Bon jour, mon père, et merci mille fois_.” - -So we left, and the Abbé Bourdin spoke his last words to me: “We owe -our liberation to the English. We thank you. But why did you not come -sooner? Two years sooner, three years. With your great army?” - -“Many of our men died to get here,” I said. “Thousands.” - -“That is true. That is true. You failed many times, I know. But you were -so close. One big push--eh? One mighty effort? No?” - -The priest spoke a thought which I had heard expressed in the crowds. -They were grateful for our coming, immensely glad, but could not -understand why we had tried their patience so many years. That had been -their greatest misery, waiting, waiting. - -I spoke to Pierre Nesle on the doorstep of the priest’s house. - -“Have you an idea that your sister is in Lille?” - -“No,” he said. “No. At least not more than the faintest hope. She is -behind the lines somewhere--anywhere. She went away from home before the -war--she was a singer--and was caught in the tide.” - -“No news at all?” I asked. - -“Her last letter was from Lille. Or rather a postcard with the Lille -stamp. She said, I am amusing myself well, little brother.’ She and I -were good comrades. I look for her face in the crowds. But she may be -anywhere--Valenciennes, Maubeuge--God knows!” - -A shout of “_Vive la France!_” rose from a crowd of people surging up -the street. Pierre Nesle was in the blue uniform of the _chasseurs à -pied_, and the people in Lille guessed it was theirs because of its -contrast to our khaki, though the “_horizon bleu_” was so different from -the uniforms worn by the French army of ‘14. To them now, on the day of -liberation, Pierre Nesle, our little _liaison_ officer, stood for the -armies of France, the glory of France. Even the sight of our khaki did -not fill them with such wild enthusiasm. So I lost him again as I had -lost the little American doctor in the surge and whirlpool of the crowd. - - - - -II - - -I was building up in my mind the historic meaning of the day. Before -nightfall I should have to get it written--the spirit as well as the -facts, if I could--in time for the censors and the despatch-riders. The -facts? By many scraps of conversation with men and women in the streets -I could already reconstruct pretty well the life of Lille in time of -war. I found many of their complaints rather trivial. The Germans had -wanted brass and had taken it, down to the taps in the washing-places. -Well, I had seen worse horrors than that. They had wanted wool and had -taken the mattresses. They had requisitioned all the wine but had paid -for it at cheap rates. These were not atrocities. The people of Lille -had been short of food, sometimes on the verge of starvation, but not -really starved. They complained of having gone without butter, milk, -sugar; but even in England these things were hard to get. No, the -tragedy of Lille lay deeper than that. A sense of fear that was always -with them. “Every time there was a knock at the door,” said one man, “we -started up in alarm. It was a knock at our hearts.” At any time of -the day or night they were subject to visits from German police, to -searches, arrests, or orders to get out of their houses or rooms for -German officers or troops. They were denounced by spies, Germans or -debased people of their own city, for trying to smuggle letters to -their folk in other towns in enemy occupation, for concealing copper -in hiding-places, for words of contempt against the Kaiser or the -Kommandatur, spoken at a street corner between one friend and another. -That consciousness of being watched, overheard, reported and denounced -poisoned the very atmosphere of their lives, and the sight of the -field-grey men in the streets, the stench of them--the smell was -horrible when German troops marched back from the battlefields--produced -a soul-sickness worse than physical nausea. I could understand -the constant fret at the nerves of these people, the nagging -humiliation--they had to doff hats to every German officer who swaggered -by--and the slow-burning passion of people, proud by virtue of their -race, who found themselves controlled, ordered about, bullied, punished -for trivial infractions of military regulations, by German officials of -hard, unbending arrogance. That must have been abominable for so long -a time; but as yet I heard no charges of definite brutality, or of -atrocious actions by individual enemies. The worst I had heard was that -levy of the women for forced labour in unknown places. One could imagine -the horror of it, the cruelty of it to girls whose nerves were already -unstrung by secret fears, dark and horrible imaginings, the beast-like -look in the eyes of men who passed them in the streets. Then the -long-delayed hope of liberation--year after year--the German boasts of -victory, the strength of the German defence that never seemed to weaken, -in spite of the desperate attacks of French and British, the preliminary -success of their great offensive in March and April, when masses of -English prisoners were herded through Lille, dejected, exhausted, hardly -able to drag their feet along between their sullen guards--by heaven, -these people of Lille had needed much faith to save them from despair! -No wonder now that on the first day of liberation some, of them were -wet-eyed with joy, and others were lightheaded with liberty. - -In the Grande Place below the old balustraded Town Hall I saw young -Cyril Clatworthy, one of the Intelligence crowd, surrounded by a group -of girls who were stroking his tunic, clasping his hands, pushing each -other laughingly to get nearer to him. He was in lively conversation -with the prettiest girl, whom he kept in front of him. It was obvious -that he was enjoying himself as the central figure of this hero-worship, -and as I passed the boy (twenty-four that birthday, he had told me -a month before) I marvelled at his ceaseless capacity for amorous -adventure, with or without a moment’s notice. A pretty girl, if -possible, or a plain one if not, drew him like a magnet, excited all his -boyish egotism, called to the faun-spirit that played the pipes of Pan -in his heart. It was an amusing game for him, with his curly brown hair -and Midshipman Easy type of face. For the French girls whom he had met -on his way--little Marcelle on Cassel Hill, Christine at Corbie on the -Somme, Marguérite in the hat-shop at Amiens (what became of her, poor -kid?)--it was not so amusing when he “blew away,” as he called it, and -had a look at life elsewhere. - -He winked at me, as I passed, over the heads of the girls. - -“The fruits of victory!” he called out. “There is a little Miss -Brown-Eyes here who is quite enchanting.” - -It was rather caddish of me to say: “Have you forgotten Marguérite -Aubigny?” - -He thought so, too, and reddened angrily. - -“Go to blazes!” he said. - -His greatest chum, and one of mine--Charles Fortune--was standing -outside a _café_ in the big Place, not far from the Vieille Bourse, with -its richly-carved Renaissance front. Here there was a dense crowd, but -they kept at a respectful distance from Fortune, who, with his red -tabs and red-and-blue arm-band and row of ribbons (all gained by heroic -service over a blotting-pad in a Nissen hut) looked to them, no doubt, -like a great general. He had his “heroic” face on, rather mystical and -saintly. (He had a variety of faces for divers occasions--such as the -“sheep’s face” in the presence of generals who disliked brilliant men, -the “intelligent” facer-bright and inquiring--for senior officers who -liked easy questions to which they could give portentous answers, the -“noble” face for the benefit of military chaplains, foreign visitors to -the war-zone, and batmen before they discovered his sense of humour; -and the “old-English-gentleman” face at times for young Harding, who -belonged to a county family with all its traditions, politics, and -instincts, and permitted Fortune to pull his leg, to criticise generals, -and denounce the British Empire as a licensed jester.) - -Fortune was addressing four gentlemen of the Town Council of Lille who -stood before him, holding ancient top-hats. - -“Gentlemen,” said Charles Fortune in deliberate French, with an -exaggerated accent, “I appreciate very much the honour you have just -paid me by singing that heroic old song, ‘It’s a long, long way to -Tipperary.’ I desire, however, to explain to you that it is not as yet -the National Anthem of the British people, and that, personally, I have -never been to Tipperary, that I should find some difficulty in finding -that place on the map, and that I never want to go there. This, however, -is of small importance, except to British generals, to whom all small -things are of great importance--revealing, therefore, their minute -attention to details, even when it does not matter--which, I may say, -is the true test of the military mind which is so gloriously winning -the war, after many glorious defeats (I mean victories) and----” (Here -Fortune became rather tangled in his French grammar, but rescued -himself after a still more heroic look). “And it is with the deepest -satisfaction, the most profound emotion, that I find myself in this -great city of Lille on the day of liberation, and on behalf of the -British Army, of which I am a humble representative, in spite of these -ribbons which I wear on my somewhat expansive chest, I thank you from my -heart, with the words, ‘_la France!_’” - -Here Fortune heaved a deep sigh, and looked like a field marshal while -he waited for the roar of cheers which greeted his words. The mystical -look on his face became intensified as he stood there, a fine heroic -figure (a trifle stout for lack of exercise), until he suddenly caught -sight of a nice-looking girl in the crowd nearest to him, and gave her -an elaborate wink, as much as to say, “You and I understand each other, -my pretty one! Beneath this heroic pose I am really human.” - -The effect of that wink was instantaneous. The girl blushed vividly and -giggled, while the crowd shouted with laughter. - -“_Quel numéro! Quel drôle de type!_” said a man by my side. - -Only the four gentlemen of the Town Hall, who had resumed their -top-hats, looked perplexed at this grotesque contrast between the heroic -speech (it had sounded heroic) and its anti-climax. - -Fortune took me by the arm as I edged my way close to him. - -“My dear fellow, it was unbelievable when those four old birds sang -‘Tipperary’ with bared heads. I had to stand at the salute while they -sang three verses with tears in their eyes. They have been learning it -during four years of war. Think of that! And think of what’s happening -in Ireland--in Tipperary--now! There’s some paradox here which contains -all the comedy and pathos of this war. I must think it out. I can’t -quite get at it yet, but I feel it from afar.” - -“This is not a day for satire,” I said. “This is a day for sentiment. -These people have escaped from frightful things----” - -Fortune looked at me with quizzical grey eyes out of his handsome, -mask-like face. - -“_Et tu, Brute?_ After all our midnight talks, our laughter at the -mockery of the gods, our intellectual slaughter of the staff, our -tearing down of all the pompous humbug which has bolstered up this silly -old war.” - -“I know. But to-day we can enjoy the spirit of victory. It’s real, here. -We have liberated all these people.” - -“We? You mean the young Tommies who lie dead the other side of the -canal? We come in and get the kudos. Presently the generals will come -and say, ‘We did it! Regard our glory! Fling down your flowers! Cheer -us, good people, before we go to lunch.’ They will not see behind -them the legions they sent to slaughter by ghastly blunders, colossal -stupidity, invincible pomposity.” - -Fortune broke into song. It was an old anthem of his: - -“_Blear-eyed Bill, the Butcher of the Boche_.” - -He had composed it, after a fourth whisky, on a cottage piano in his -Nissen hut. In crashing chords he had revealed the soul of a general -preparing a plan of battle--over the telephone. It never failed to make -me laugh, except that day in Lille when it was out of tune, I thought, -with the spirit about us. - -“Let’s put the bitter taste out of our mouth to-day,” I said. - -Fortune made his sheep-face, saluted behind his ear, and said, “Every -inch a soldier--I don’t think!” - - - - -III - - -It was then we bumped straight into Wickham Brand, who was between a -small boy and girl, holding his hands, while a tall girl of sixteen or -so, with a yellow pig-tail slung over her shoulder, walked alongside, -talking vivaciously of family experiences under German rule. Pierre -Nesle was on the other side of her. - -“In spite of all the fear we had--oh, how frightened we were -sometimes!--we used to laugh very much. _Maman_ made a joke of -everything--it was the only way. _Maman_ was wonderfully brave, except -when she thought that father might have been killed.” - -“Where was your father?” asked Brand. “On the French side of the lines?” - -“Yes, of course. He was an officer in the artillery. We said good-bye -to him on August 2nd of the first year, when he went off to the dépôt -at Belfort. We all cried except _maman_--father was crying, too, but -_maman_ did not wink away even the tiniest tear until father had gone. -Then she broke down, so that we all howled at the sight of her. Even -these babies joined in. They were only babies then.” - -“Any news of him?” asked Brand. - -“Not a word. How could there be? Perhaps in a few days he will walk into -Lille. So _maman_ says.” - -“That would be splendid!” said Brand. “What is his name?” - -“Chéri, M. le Commandant Anatole Chéri, 59th Brigade, _artillerie -lourde._” - -The girl spoke her father’s name proudly. - -I saw a startled look come into the eyes of Pierre Nesle as he heard -the name. In English he said to Brand: “I knew him at Verdun. He was -killed.” - -Wickham Brand drew a sharp breath, and his voice was husky when he -spoke, in English, too. - -“What cruelty it all is!” - -The girl with the pig-tail--a tall young creature with a delicate face -and big brown eyes--stared at Pierre Nesle and then at Wickham Brand. -She asked an abrupt question of Pierre. - -“Is my father dead?” - -Pierre Nesle stammered something. He was not sure. He had heard that the -Commandant Chéri was wounded at Verdun. - -The girl understood perfectly. - -“He is dead, then? _Maman_ will be very sorry.” - -She did not cry. There was not even a quiver of her lips. She shook -hands with Brand and said: “I must go and tell _maman_. Will you come -and see us one day?” - -“With pleasure,” said Brand. - -“Promise?” - -The girl laughed as she raised her finger. - -“I promise,” said Brand solemnly. - -The girl “collected” the small boy and girl, holding their heads close -to her waist. - -“Is father dead?” said the small boy. - -“Perhaps. I believe so,” said the elder sister. - -“Then we shan’t get the toys from Paris?” said the small girl. - -“I am afraid not, _coquine?_” - -“What a pity!” said the boy. - -Pierre Nesle took a step forward and saluted. - -“I will go with you, if you permit it, mademoiselle. It is perhaps in a -little way my duty, as I met your father in the war.” - -“Thanks a thousand times,” said the girl. “_Maman_ will be glad to know -all you can tell her.” - -She waved to Brand a merry _au revoir_. - -We stood watching them cross the Grande Place, that tall girl and the -two little ones, and Pierre. - -Fortune touched Brand on the arm. - -“Plucky, that girl,” he said. “Took it without a whimper. I wonder if -she cared?” - -Brand turned on him rather savagely. - -“Cared? Of course she cared. But she had expected it for four years, -grown up to the idea. These war children have no illusions about the -business. They know that the odds are in favour of death.” - -He raised his hands above his head with a sudden passionate gesture. - -“Christ God!” he said. “The tragedy of those people! The monstrous -cruelty of it all!” - -Fortune took his hand and patted it in a funny affectionate way. - -“You are too sensitive, Wicky. ‘A sensitive plant in a garden grew’--a -war-garden, with its walls blown down, and dead bodies among the little -daisies-o. I try to cultivate a sense of humour and a little irony. -It’s a funny old war, Wicky, believe me, if you look at it in the right -light.” - -Wickham groaned. - -“I see no humour in it, nor light anywhere.” - -Fortune chanted again the beginning of his anthem: - -“_Blear-eyed Bill, the Butcher of the Boche_.” - -As usual there was a crowd about us, smiling, waving handkerchiefs and -small flags, pressing forward to shake hands and to say “_Vivent les -Anglais!_” - -It was out of that crowd that a girl came and stood in front of us, with -a wave of her hand. - -“Good morning, British officers! I’m English--or Irish, which is good -enough. Welcome to Lille.” - -Fortune shook hands with her first and said very formally, in his -mocking way: “How do you do? Are you by chance my long-lost sister? -Is there a strawberry-mark on your left arm?” She laughed with a big, -open-mouthed laugh, on a contralto note that was good to hear. - -“I’m everybody’s sister who speaks the English tongue, which is fine -to the ears of me after four years in Lille. Eileen O’Connor, by your -leave, gentlemen.” - -“Not Eileen O’Connor of Tipperary?” asked Fortune gravely. “You know the -Long Long Way, of course?” - -“Once of Dublin,” said the girl, “and before the war, of Holland Street, -Kensington, in the village of London. Oh, to hear the roar of ‘buses in -the High Street and to see the glint of sunlight on the Round Pond!” - -She was a tall girl, shabbily dressed in an old coat and skirt with a -bit of fur round her neck and hat, but with a certain look of elegance -in the thin line of her figure and the poise of her head. Real Irish, by -the look of her dark eyes and a rather irregular nose and humorous lips. -Not pretty in the English way, but spirited, and with some queer charm -in her. - -Wickham Brand was holding her hand. - -“Good Lord! Eileen O’Connor? I used to meet you, years ago, at the -Wilmots--those funny tea-parties in Chelsea.” - -“With farthing buns and cigarettes, and young boys with big ideas!” - -The girl laughed with a kind of wonderment, and stood close to Wickham -Brand, holding his Sam Brown belt and staring up into his face. - -“Why, you must be--you must be---- you are--the tall boy who used to -grow out of his grey suits and wrote mystical verse and read Tolstoy, -and growled at civilisation and smoked black pipes, and fell in love -with elderly artists’ models. Wickham Brand!” - -“That’s right,” said Brand, ignoring the laughter of Fortune and myself. -“Then I went to Germany and studied their damned philosophy, and then -I became a briefless barrister, and after that took to writing -unsuccessful novels. Here I am, after four years of war, ashamed to be -alive when all my pals are dead.” - -He glanced at Fortune and me, and said, “Or most of ‘em. - -“It’s the same Wicky I remember,” said the girl, “and at the sight of -you I feel I’ve gone back to myself as a tousled-haired thing in a short -frock and long black stockings. The good old days before the war. Before -other things and all kinds of things.” - -“Why on earth were you in Lille when the war began?” asked Brand. - -“It just happened. I taught painting here. Then I was caught with the -others. We did not think They would come so soon.” - -She used the word “They” as we all did, meaning the grey men. - -“It must have been hell,” said Brand. - -“Mostly hell,” said Miss O’Connor brightly. “At least, one saw into -the gulfs of hell, and devilishness was close at hand. But there were -compensations, wee bits of heaven. On the whole I enjoyed myself.” - -“Enjoyed yourself?” - -Brand was startled by that phrase. - -“Oh, it was an adventure. I took risks--and came through. I lived all of -it--every minute. It was a touch-and-go game with the devil and death, -and I dodged them both. _Dieu soit merci!_” She laughed with a little -throw-back of the head, showing a white full throat above the ragged bit -of fur. A number of French women pressed about her. Some of them patted -her arms, fondled her hands. One woman bent down and kissed her shabby -jacket. - -“_Elle était merveilleuse, la demoiselle,_” said an old Frenchman by my -side. “She was marvellous, sir. All that she did for the wounded, for -your prisoners, for many men who owe their lives to her, cannot be told -in a little while. They tried to catch her. She was nearly caught. It is -a miracle that she was not shot. A miracle, monsieur!” - -Other people in the crowd spoke to me about “_la demoiselle_.” They were -mysterious. Even now they could not tell me all she had done. But she -had risked death every day for four years. Every day. Truly it was a -miracle she was not caught. - -Listening to them, I missed some of Eileen O’Connor’s own words to -Brand, and saw only the wave of her hand as she disappeared into the -crowd. - -It was Brand who told me that he and I and Fortune had been invited to -spend the evening with her, or an “hour or so. I saw that Wicky, as we -called him, was startled by the meeting with her, and was glad of it. - -“I knew her when we were kids,” he said. “Ten years ago--perhaps more. -She used to pull my hair! Extraordinary, coming face to face with her in -Lille, on this day of all days.” - -He turned to Fortune with a look of command. - -“We ought to get busy with that advanced headquarters. There are plenty -of big houses in these streets.” - -“_Ce qu’on appelle un embarras de choix_,” said Fortune, with his rather -comical exaggeration of accent. “And Blear-eyed Bill wants us to go on -beating the Boche. I insist on a house with a good piano--German for -choice.” - -They went off on their quest, and I to my billet, which had been found -by the major of ours, where I wrote the story of how we entered Lille on -a typewriter with a twisted ribbon, which would not write quickly enough -all I wanted to tell the world about a day of history. - - - - -IV - - -I had the luck to be billeted in Lille at the house of Madame Chéri, in -the Rue Esquermoise. - -This lady was the mother of the girl with the pig-tail and the two -children with whom Wickham Brand had made friends on this morning of -liberation--the wife of that military officer whom Pierre Nesle had -known at Verdun and knew to be killed. It was my luck, because there -were children in the house--the pig-tailed girl, Hélène, was more a -woman than a child, though only sixteen--and I craved for a touch of -home life and children’s company after so long an exile in the war-zone, -always among men who talked of war, thought of it, dreamed of it, year -in, year out. - -Madame Chéri was, I thought, when I saw her first, a beautiful woman, -not physically--because she was too white and worn--but spiritually, in -courage of soul. Pierre Nesle, our _liaison_ officer, told me how she -had received the news of her husband’s death--unflinchingly, without -a cry. She knew, she said, in her heart that he was dead. Some queer -message had reached her one night during the Verdun battles. It was no -ghost, or voice, but only a sudden cold conviction that her man had -been killed. For the children’s sake she had pretended that their father -might come back. It gave them something to look forward to. The little -ones were always harping on the hope that, when peace came, this -mysterious and glorious man, whom they remembered only vaguely as one -who had played bears with them and had been the provider of all good -things, would return with rich presents from Paris--tin soldiers, -queen-dolls, mechanical toys. Hélène, the elder girl, was different. She -had looked curiously at her mother when the children prattled like that -and Madame Chéri had pretended to believe in the father’s homecoming. -Once or twice the girl had said, “Papa may be killed,” in a -matter-of-fact way. Yet she had been his devoted comrade. They had been -such lovers, the father and daughter, that sometimes the mother had -been a little jealous, so she said, in her frank way, to Pierre Nesle, -smiling as she spoke. The war had made Hélène a realist, like most -French girls, to whom the idea of death became commonplace, almost -inevitable, as the ceaseless slaughter of men went on. The German losses -had taught them that. - -I had the colonel’s dressing-room--he had attained the grade of colonel -before Verdun, so Pierre told me--and Madame Chéri came in while I -was there to see that it was properly arranged for me. Over his iron -bedstead (the Germans had taken the woollen mattress, so that it had -been replaced by bags of straw) was his portrait as a lieutenant of -artillery, as he had been at the time of his marriage. He was a handsome -fellow, rather like Hélène, with her delicate profile and brown eyes, -though more like, said Madame Chéri, their eldest boy, Edouard. - -“Where is he?” I asked, and that was the only time I saw Madame Chéri -break down utterly. - -She began to tell me that Edouard had been taken away by the Germans, -among all the able-bodied men and boys who were sent away from Lille -for digging trenches behind the lines, in Easter of ‘16, and that he had -gone bravely, with his little pack of clothes over his shoulder, saying, -“It is nothing, _maman_. My father taught me the word _courage_. In a -little while we shall win, and I shall be back. _Courage, courage!_” - -Madame Chéri repeated her son’s words proudly, so that I seemed to see -the boy with that pack on his shoulder and a smile on his face. Then, -suddenly, she wept bitterly, wildly, her body shaken with a kind of -ague, while she sat on the iron bedstead with her face in her hands. - -I repeated the boy’s words. - -“Courage, courage, madam!” - -Proudly she wailed out in broken sentences:-- - -“He was such a child!... He caught cold so easily!... He was so -delicate!... He needed mother-love so much!... For two years no word has -come from him!” In a little while she controlled herself and begged -me to excuse her. We went down together to the dining-room, where the -children were playing and Hélène was reading; and she insisted upon my -drinking a glass of wine from the store which she had kept hidden from -the Germans in a pit which Edouard had dug in the garden in the first -days of the occupation. The children were delighted with that trick, and -roared with laughter. - -Hélène, with a curl of her lip, spoke bitterly. - -“The Boche is a stupid animal. One can dupe him easily.” - -“Not always easily,” said Madame Chéri. She opened a secret cupboard -behind a bookcase standing against the panelled wall. - -“I hid all my brass and copper here. A German police officer came, and -said, ‘Have you hidden any copper, madame?’ I said, ‘There is nothing -hidden.’ ‘Do you swear it?’ he asked. ‘I swear it,’ I answered very -haughtily. He went straight to the bookcase, pushed it on one side, -tapped the wall, and opened the secret cupboard’, which was stuffed full -of brass and copper. ‘You are a liar, madame,’ he said, ‘like all -Frenchwomen.’ ‘And you are an insolent pig, like all Germans,’ I -remarked. That cost me a fine of ten thousand francs.” - -Madame Chéri saw nothing wrong in swearing falsely to a German. I think -she held that nothing was wrong to deceive or to destroy any individual -of the German race, and I could understand her point of view when Pierre -Nesle told me of one thing that had happened which she never told to me. -It was about Hélène. - -A German captain was billeted in the house. They ignored his presence, -though he tried to ingratiate himself. Hélène hated him with a cold and -deadly hatred. She trembled if he passed her on the stairs. His presence -in the house, even if she did not see him but only heard him move in -his room, made her feel ill. Yet he was very polite to her, and said, -“_Guten gnadiges Fràulein_,” whenever they met. To Edouard, also, he was -courteous and smiling, though Edouard was sullen. He was a stout -little man, with a round rosy face and little bright eyes behind big -black-rimmed glasses, an officer in the Kommandantur, and formerly a -schoolmaster. Madame Chéri, was polite to him, but cold, cold as ice. -After some months, she found him harmless, though objectionable, because -German. It did not seem dangerous to leave him in the house one evening -when she went to visit a dying friend--Madame Vailly. She was later than -she meant to be--so late that she was liable to arrest by the military -police if they saw her flit past in the darkness of the unlit streets. -When she came home she slipped the latch-key into the door and went -quietly into the hall. The children would be in bed and asleep. At the -foot of the stairs a noise startled her. It was a curious creaking, -shaking noise, as of a door being pushed by some heavy weight, -then banged by it. It was the door at the top of the stairs, on the -left--Helène’s room. - -“_Qu’est-ce que tu fais là?_” said Madame Chéri. - -She was very frightened with some unknown fear, and held tight to the -banister as she went upstairs. There was a glimmer of light on the -landing. It was from a candle which had almost burnt out and was -guttering in a candlestick placed on the topmost stair. A grotesque -figure was revealed by the light--Schwarz, the German officer, in his -pyjamas, with a helmet on his head and unlaced boots on his feet. The -loose fat of the man, no longer girded by a belt, made him look like a -mass of jelly as he had his shoulder to the door, shoving and grunting -as he tried to force it open. He was swearing to himself in German, -and, now and then, called out softly in French, in a kind of drunken -German-French: “_Ouvrez, kleines Madchen, ma jolie Schatz. Ouvrez -donc._” - -Madame Chéri was paralysed for a moment by a shock of horror; quite -speechless and motionless. Then suddenly she moved forward and spoke in -a fierce whisper. - -“What are you doing, beast?” - -Schwarz gave a queer snort of alarm. - -He stood swaying a little, with the helmet on the back of his head. The -candlelight gleamed on its golden eagle. His face was hotly flushed and -there was a ferocious look in his eyes. Madame Chéri saw that he was -drunk. - -He spoke to her in horrible French, so Pierre Nesle told me, imitating -it savagely, as Madame Chéri had done to him. The man was filthily -drunk, and declared that he loved Hélène and would kill her if she did -not let him love her. Why did she lock her door like that? He had been -kind to her. He had smiled at her. A German officer was a human being, -not a monster. Why did they treat him as a monster, draw themselves away -when he passed, become silent when he wished to speak with them, stare -at him with hate in their eyes? The French people were all devils, proud -as devils. - -Another figure stood on the landing. It was Edouard--a tall, slim -figure, with a white face and burning eyes, in which there was a look of -fury. - -“What is happening, _maman?_” he said coldly. “What does this animal -want?” - -Madame Chéri trembled with a new fear. If the boy were to kill that man, -he would be shot. She had a vision of him standing against a wall.... - -“It is nothing,” she said. “This gentleman is ill. Go back to bed, -Edouard. I command you.” - -The German laughed stupidly. - -“To bed, _shafskopf_. I am going to open your sister’s door. She loves -me. She calls to me. I hear her whisper, ‘_Ich liebe dich!_’” - -Edouard had a stick in his hand. It was a heavy walking-stick which had -belonged to his father. Without a word he sprang forward, raised -his weapon, and smashed it down on the German’s head. It knocked -off Schwarz’s helmet, which rolled from the top to the bottom of the -staircase, and hit the man a glancing blow on the temple. He fell like -a log. Edouard smiled, and said, “_Très bien._” Then he rattled the lock -of his sister’s door and called out to her: “Hélène.... Have no fear. He -is dead. I have killed him.” - -It was then that Madame Chéri had her greatest fear. There was no sound -from Hélène. She did not answer any of their cries. She did not open the -door to them. They tried to force the lock, as Schwarz had done, but, -though the lock gave at last, the door would not open, kept closed by -some barricade behind it. Edouard and his mother went out into the yard, -and the boy climbed up to his sister’s window and broke the glass to -go through. Hélène was lying in her nightdress on the bedroom floor, -unconscious. She had moved a heavy wardrobe in front of the door, -by some supernatural strength which came from fear. Then she had -fainted.... To his deep regret, Edouard had not killed the German. - -Schwarz had crawled back to his bedroom when they went back into the -house, and next morning wept to Madame Chéri and implored forgiveness. -There had been a little banquet, he said, and he had drunk too much. - -Madame Chéri did not forgive. She called at the Kommandantur, where the -General saw her and listened to her gravely. He did not waste words. - -“The matter will be attended to,” he said. - -Captain Schwarz departed that day from the house in the Rue Esquermoise. -He was sent to a battalion in the line and was killed somewhere near -Ypres. - - - - -V - - -Wickham Brand paid his promised visit to the Chéri family, according -to his pledge to Hélène, whom he had met in the street the previous day, -and he had to drink some of the hidden wine, as I had done, and heard -the story of its concealment and of Madame’s oath about the secret hoard -of copper. I think he was more disconcerted than I had been by that -avowal, and told me afterwards that he believed no Englishwoman would -have sworn to so deliberate a lie. - -“That’s because the English are not so logical,” I said, and he puzzled -over that. - -He was greatly taken with Hélène, as she with him, but he risked their -friendship in an awkward moment when he expressed the hope that the -German offer of peace (the one before the final surrender) would be -accepted. - -It was Madame Chéri who took him up on that, sharply, and with a kind of -surprised anguish in her voice. She hoped, she said, that no peace would -be made with Germany until French and British and American troops had -smashed the German armies, crossed the German frontier, and destroyed -many German towns and villages. She would not be satisfied with any -peace that came before a full vengeance, so that German women would -taste the bitterness of war as Frenchwomen had drunk deep of it, and -until Germany was heaped with ruins as France had been. - -Wickham Brand was sitting with the small boy on his knees, and stroked -his hair before answering. - -“_Dites, donc!_” said Hélène, who was sitting on the hearthrug, looking -up at his powerful profile, which reminded me always of a Norman knight, -or, sometimes, of a young monk worried about his soul and the devil. - -He had that monkish look now when he answered. - -“I don’t know,” he said. “I have felt like that often. But I have come -to think that the sooner we get blood out of our eyes the better for all -the world. I have seen enough dead Germans--and dead English and dead -French--to last a lifetime. Many of the German soldiers hate the war, -as I know, and curse the men who drove them on to it. They are -trapped. They cannot escape from the thing they curse, because of their -discipline, their patriotism----” - -“Their patriotism!” said Madame Chéri. - -She was really angry with Brand, and I noticed that even Hélène drew -back a little from her place on the rug and looked perplexed and -disappointed. Madame Chéri ridiculed the idea of German patriotism. -They were brutes who liked war except when they feared defeat. They had -committed a thousand atrocities out of sheer joy in bestial cruelty. -Their idea of patriotism was blood-lust and the oppression of people -more civilised than themselves. They hated all people who were not -savages like themselves. - -Wickham Brand shook his head. - -“They’re not all as bad as that. I knew decent people among them before -the war. For a time, of course, they went mad. They were poisoned by the -damnable philosophy of their leaders and teachers.” - -“They liked the poison,” said Madame Chéri. “They lapped it up. It is in -their blood and spirits. They are foul through and through.” - -“They are devils,” said Hélène. She shuddered as though she felt very -cold. - -Even the small boy on Brand’s knees said: “_Sales Boches!_” - -Brand groaned in a whimsical way. - -“I have said all those things a thousand times! They nearly drove me -mad. But now it’s time to stop the river of blood--if the German army -will acknowledge defeat. I would not go on a day after that, for our own -sakes--for the sake of French boys and English. Every day more of war -means more dead of ours, more blind, more crippled, and more agony of -soul. I want some of our boyhood to be saved.” - -Madame Chéri answered coldly. - -“Not before the Germans have been punished. Not before that, if we all -die.” - -Hélène sprang up with a passionate gesture. - -“All German babies ought to be strangled in their cradles! Before they -grow up to be fat, beastly men.” - -She was thinking of Schwarz, I imagine. It was the horror of remembrance -which made her so fierce. Then she laughed, and said: “Oh, _là là_, let -us be glad because yesterday we were liberated. Do not quarrel with an -English officer, _maman_. He helped to save us.” - -She put her hands on Wickham Brand’s shoulders and said: “_Merci, mon -capitaine!_” - -So the conversation turned, and Wickham won them back by his courtesy, -and by a tribute to the courage of French civilians behind the lines, of -whom he told many haunting stories. - -But when I walked round with him to his mess--we were going round later -to see Eileen O’Connor--he referred back to the incident. - -“Daddy Small is right.” (He referred to the little American doctor.) -“The hatred of these people is transcendental. It is like a spiritual -flame. It is above all self-interest, kindly, human instincts, life -itself. That woman would sacrifice herself, and her children, as quietly -as she heard the death of her husband, rather than grant the Germans -peace without victory and vengeance. How can there be any peace, -whatever treaty is signed? Can Europe ever get peace with all this -hatred as a heritage?” - - - - -VI - - -We walked silently towards the Boulevard de la Liberté, where Brand’s -little crowd had established their headquarters. - -“Perhaps they’re right,” he said presently. “Perhaps the hatred is -divine.... I may be weakening, because of all the horror.” - -Then he was silent again, and while I walked by his side I thought back -to his career as I had known it in the war, rather well. He had always -been tortured by agonised perplexities. I had guessed that by the -look of the man and some of his odd phrases, and his restlessness and -foolhardiness. It was in the trenches by Fricourt that I had first seen -him--long before the battles of the Somme. He was sitting motionless on -a wooden box, staring through a periscope towards the mine craters and -the Bois Français in No Man’s Land. The fine hardness of his profile, -the strength of his jaw--not massive, but with one clean line from ear -to chin--and something in the utter intensity of his attitude, attracted -my attention, and I asked the colonel about him. - -“Who is that fellow--like a Norman knight?” - -The colonel of the K.R.R. laughed as we went round the next bay, ducking -our heads where the sandbags had slipped down. - -“Further back than Norman,” he said. “He’s the primitive man.” - -He told me that Wickham Brand--a lieutenant then--was a young barrister -who had joined the battalion at the beginning of ‘15. He had taken up -sniping and made himself a dead shot. He had the hunter’s instinct and -would wait hours behind the sandbags for the sight of a German head in -the trendies opposite. He seldom missed his man, or that part of his -body which showed for a second. Lately he had taken to the habit of -crawling out into No Man’s Land and waiting in some shell-hole for the -dawn, when Germans came out to mend their wire or drag in a dead body. -He generally left another dead man as a bait for the living. Then he -would come back with a grim smile and eat his breakfast wolfishly, after -cutting a notch in one of the beams of his dug-out. - -“He’s a Hun-hater, body and soul,” said the colonel. “We want more of -‘em. All the same, Brand makes me feel queer by his ferocity. I like a -humorous fellow who does his killing cheerfully.” - -After that I met Brand and took a drink with him in his dug-out. He -answered my remarks gruffly for a time. - -“I hear you go in for sniping a good deal,” I said, by way of -conversation. - -“Yes. It’s murder made easy.” - -“Do you get many targets?” - -“It’s a waiting game. Sometimes they get careless.” He puffed at a black -old pipe, quite silent for a time. Presently he told me about a “young -‘un” who popped his head over the parapet twice to stare at something on -the edge of the mine crater. - -“I spared him twice. The third time I said, ‘Better dead,’ and let go at -him. The kid was too easy to miss.” Something in the tone of his voice -told me that he hated himself for that. - -“Rather a pity,” I mumbled. - -“War,” he said. “Bloody war.” - -There was a candle burning on the wooden bench on which he leaned his -elbow, and by the light of it I saw that his eyes were bloodshot. There -was a haggard look on his face. - -“It must need some nerve,” I said awkwardly, “to go out so often in No -Man’s Land. Real pluck.” - -He stared at me as though surprised, and then laughed harshly. - -“Pluck? What’s that? I’m scared stiff half the time. Do you think I like -it?” - -He seemed to get angry, was angry, I think. - -“Do any of us like it? These damn things that blow men to bits, make -rags of them, tear their bowels out, and their eyes? Or to live on top -of a mine crater, as we are now, never knowing when you’re going up in -smoke and flame? If you like that sort of thing yourself you can take my -share. I have never met a man who did.” - -Yet when Brand was taken out of the trenches--by a word spoken over the -telephone from corps headquarters--because of his knowledge of German -and his cousinship to a lady who was a friend of the corps commander’s -niece, he was miserable and savage. I met him many times after that as -an intelligence officer at the corps cages, examining prisoners on days -of battle. - -“An _embusqué_ job!” he said. “I’m saving my skin while the youngsters -die.” - -He stood outside his hut one day on a morning of battle in the Somme -fields--up by Pozières. No prisoners had yet come down. He forgot my -presence and stood listening to the fury of gun-fire and watching the -smoke and flame away there on the ridge. - -“Christ!” he cried. “Why am I here? Why aren’t I with my pals up there, -getting blown to blood and pulp? Blood and pulp! Blood and pulp!” - -Then he remembered me, and turned in a shamefaced way and said, -“Sorry!... I feel rather hipped to-day.” - -I was present sometimes at his examination of prisoners--those poor, -grey, muddy wretches who came dazed out of the slime and shambles. -Sometimes he bullied them harshly, in fluent German, and they trembled -at his ferocity of speech, even whimpered now and then. But once or -twice he was in quite a different mood with them and spoke gently, -assenting when they cursed the war and its misery and said that all they -wanted was peace and home again. - -“Aren’t you fellows going to revolt?” he asked one man--a _Feldwebel._ -“Aren’t you going to tell your war lords to go to hell and stop all this -silly massacre before Germany is _kaput?_” - -The German shrugged his shoulders. - -“We would if we could. It is impossible. Discipline is too strong for -us. It has enslaved us.” - -“That’s true,” said Brand. “You are slaves of a system.” - -He spoke a strange sentence in English as he glanced over to me. - -“I am beginning to think we are all slaves of a system. None of us can -break the chains.” - -It was after that day that Brand took a fancy to me, for some reason, -inviting me to his mess, where I met Charles Fortune and others, and it -was there that I heard amazing discussions about the philosophy of war, -German psychology, the object of life, the relation of Christianity -to war, and the decadence of Europe. Brand himself sometimes led these -discussions, with a savage humour which delighted Charles Fortune, who -egged him on. He was always pessimistic, sceptical, challenging, -bitter, and now and then so violent in his criticisms of England, the -Government, the Army Council, the Staff, and above all, the Press, that -most of his fellow officers--apart from Fortune--thought he went “a bit -too far.” - -Dear old Harding, who was Tory to the backbone, with a deep respect for -all in authority, accused him of being a “damned revolutionary,” and -for a moment it looked as though there would be hot words, until Brand -laughed in a good-natured way and said, “My dear fellow, I’m only -talking academic rot. I haven’t a conviction. Ever since the war began -I have been trying to make head or tail of things in a sea-fog of doubt. -All I know is that I want the bloody orgy to end, somehow and anyhow.” - -“With victory,” said Harding solemnly. - -“With the destruction of Prussian philosophy everywhere,” said Brand. - -They agreed on that, but I could see that Brand was on shifting ground -and I knew, as our friendship deepened; that he was getting beyond a -religion of mere hate, and was looking for some other kind of faith. -Occasionally he harked back, as on the day in Lille when I walked by his -side. - - - - -VII - - -I dined with him in his mess that evening, before going on with him -to spend an hour or two with Eileen O’Connor, who had a room in some -convent on the outskirts of Lille. The advanced headquarters of this -little group of officers had been established in one of those big -private houses which belong to the rich manufacturers and business -people of Lille (rich before the war, but with desolate factories -stripped of all machinery during the German occupation and afterwards), -with large, heavily-furnished rooms built round a courtyard and barred -off from the street by the big front door. There was a motor lorry -inside the door, which was wide open, and some orderlies were unloading -camp-beds, boxes of maps, officers’ kit, a mahogany gramophone, and -other paraphernalia, under the direction of a young cockney sergeant, -who wanted to know why the blazes they didn’t look slippy. - -“Don’t you know there’s a war on?” he asked a stolid old soldier--one of -the heroes of Mons--who was sitting on a case of whisky, with a wistful -look, as though reflecting on the unfair privileges of officers with so -much wealth of drink. - -“War’s all right if you’re not too close to it,” said the Mons hero. -“I’ve seen enough. I’ve done my bleeding bit for King and country. South -Africa, Egypt----” - -“Shut your jaw,” said the sergeant. “And down that blarsted gramophone.” - -“Ah!” said the Mons hero. “We didn’t ‘ave no blarsted gramophones in -South Africa. This is a different kind of war. More comfort about it, if -you’re not in the trenches.” - -Wickham Brand took me through the courtyard and mentioned that the -colonel had come up from St. Omer. - -“Now we’re sure to beat the Boche,” he said. “Listen!” - -From a room to the left of the courtyard came the sound of a flute -playing one of Bach’s minuets, very sweetly, with an old-fashioned -grace. - -“A wonderful army of ours!” said Brand. “I can’t imagine a German -colonel of the Staff playing seventeenth century music on a bit of ivory -while the enemy is fighting like a tiger at bay.” - -“Perhaps that’s our strength,” I answered. “Our amateurs refuse to take -the war too seriously. I know a young gunner major who travels a banjo -in his limber, and at Cambrai I saw fellows playing chuck-penny within -ten yards of their pals’ dead bodies--a pile of them.” - -The colonel saw us through his window and waved his flute at us. When -I went into the room, after a salute at the doorway, I saw that he had -already littered it with artistic untidiness--sheets of torn music, -water-colour sketches, books of poetry, and an array of splendid shining -boots, of which a pair stood on the mahogany sideboard. - -“A beautiful little passage this,” said Colonel Lavington, smiling at me -over the flute, which he put to his lips again. He played a bar or two -of old-world melody, and said, “Isn’t that perfect? Can’t you see the -little ladies in their ^puffed brocades and high-heeled shoes!” - -He had his faun-like look, his clean-shaven face with long nose and -thin, humorous mouth, lighted up by his dark smiling eyes. - -“Not a bad headquarters,” he said, putting down the flute again. “If we -can only stay here a little while, instead of having to jog on -again. There’s an excellent piano in the dining-room, German, thank -goodness--and Charles Fortune and I can really get down to some serious -music.” - -“How’s the war?” I asked. - -“War?” he said absent-mindedly. “Oh, yes, the war! That’s going on all -right. They’d be out of Tournai in a few days. Perhaps out of Maubeuge -and Mons. Oh, the game’s up! Very soon the intellectuals will be looking -round for a living in dear old London. My goodness, some of us will find -peace a difficult job! I can see Boredom approaching with its colossal -shadow.... After all, it has been a great game, on the whole.” - -I laughed, but something stuck in my throat. Colonel Lavington -played the flute, but he knew his job, and was in touch with General -Headquarters and all its secret information. It was obvious that he -believed the war was going to end--soon. Soon, O Lord, after all the -years of massacre. - -I blurted out a straight question. - -“Do you think there’s a real chance of peace?” - -The colonel was reading a piece of music, humming it with a la, la, la. - -“Another month and our job’s done,” he said. “Have you heard that bit of -Gluck? It’s delicious.” - -I stayed with him a little while and did not follow a note of his music. -I was excited by the supreme hope he had given me. So there was to be an -end of massacre, and my own hopes had not been false. - -At the mess table that night Charles Fortune was in good form. We sat in -a room which was rather handsomely furnished, in a heavy way, with big -bronzes on the mantelpiece (ticketed for exemption from requisition -as family heirlooms), and some rather good portraits of a French -family--from the eighteenth century onwards--on the panelled walls. -The _concierge_ had told us that it had been the mess of a German -headquarters and this gave Fortune his cue, and he entertained us with -some caricatures of German generals and officers, amazingly comic. He -drank his soup in the style of a German general and ate his potato -pie as a German intelligence officer, who had once been a professor of -psychology at Heidelberg. - -The little American doctor, “Daddy” Small, as we called him, had been -made an honorary member of the mess, and he smiled at Fortune through -his spectacles, with an air of delighted surprise that such things -should be. - -“You English,” he said in his solemn way, “are the most baffling people -in the world. I have been studying you since I came to France, and all -my preconceived ideas have been knocked on the head. We Americans think -you are a hard, arrogant, selfish people, without humour or sympathy, -made in set moulds, turned out as types from your university and public -schools. That is all wrong. I am beginning to see that you are more -human, more various, more whimsical than any race in the world. You -decline to take life seriously. You won’t take even death seriously. -This war--you make a joke of it. The Germans--you kill them in great -numbers, but you have a secret liking for them. Fortune’s caricatures -are very comical--but not unkind. I believe Fortune is a pro-German. -You cannot laugh at the people you hate. I believe England will forgive -Germany quicker than any other nation--far quicker than the Americans. -France, of course, will never forgive.” - -“No,” said Pierre Nesle, who was at the end of the table. “France will -never forgive.” - -“We are an illogical people,” said the colonel. “It is only logical -people who can go on hating. Besides, German music is so-good! So good!” - -Harding, who read no paper but the _Morning Post_, said that as far as -he was concerned he would never speak to a German again in his life. He -would like to see the whole race exterminated. But he was afraid of the -Socialists with their pestilential doctrine of “brotherhood of man.” - Lloyd George also filled him with the gravest misgivings. - -Dr. Small’s eyes twinkled at him: “There is the old caste that speaks. -Tradition against the new world of ideas. Of course there will always -be _that_ conflict.... That is a wonderful phrase, ‘the pestilential -doctrine of the brotherhood of man.’ I must make a note of it.” - -“Shame oh you, doctor,” said Fortune. “You are always jotting down notes -about us. I shall find myself docketed as ‘English gentleman, grade 3; -full-blooded, inclined to obesity, humorous, strain of insanity due to -in-breeding, rare.’” - -Dr. Small laughed in a high treble, and then was serious. - -“I’m noting down everything. My own psychology, which alarms me; facts, -anecdotes, scenes, words. I want to find a law somewhere, the essential -thing in human nature. After the war--if there is any afterwards--I want -to search for a way out of the jungle. This jungle civilisation. There -must be daylight somewhere for the human race.” - -“If you find it,” said Brand earnestly, “tell me, doctor.” - -“I will,” said Dr. Small, and I remembered that pledge afterwards, when -he and Brand were together in a doomed city, trying to avert the doom, -because of that impulse which urged them to find a little daylight -beyond the darkness. - -Young Clatworthy jerked his chair on the polished boards and looked -anxiously at the Colonel, who was discoursing on the origins of art, -religion, sex, the perception of form. - -Colonel Lavington grinned at him. - -“All right, Cyril. I know you have got a rendezvous with some girl. -Don’t let us keep you from your career of infamy.” - -“As a matter of fact, sir, I met a sweet little thing yesterday----” - Clatworthy knew that his reputation as an amorist did not displease the -colonel, who was a romantic and loved youth. - -In a gust of laughter the mess broke up. Charles Fortune and the colonel -prepared for an orgy of Bach over the piano in the drawing-room of -that house in Lille. Those who cared to listen might--or not, as they -pleased. Brand and I went out into the streets, pitch-dark now, unlit -by any glimmer of gas, and made our way to the convent where the girl -Eileen O’Connor lodged. We passed a number of British soldiers in the -Boulevard de la Liberté, wearing their steel hats and carrying their -packs. - -A group of them stopped under a doorway to light cigarettes. One of them -spoke to his pals. - -“They tell me there’s some bonny wenches in this town.” - -“Ay,” said another, “an’ I could do wi’ some hugging in a cosy billet.” - -“Cosy billet!” said the third, with a cockney voice. “Town or trenches, -the poor bloody soldier gets it in the neck. Curse this pack! I’m fed up -with the whole damn show. I want peace.” - -A hoarse laugh answered him. - -“Peace! You don’t believe that fool’s talk in the papers, chum? It’s a -hell of a long way to the Rhine, and you and I’ll be dead before we get -there.” - -They slouched off into the darkness, three points of light where their -cigarettes glowed. - -“Poor lads!” said Brand. - - - - -VIII - - -We fumbled our way to a street on the edge of the canal, according to -Brand’s uncanny sense of direction and his remembrance of what the -Irish girl had told him. There we found the convent, a square box-like -building behind big gates. We pulled a bell which jangled loudly, -and presently the gate opened an inch, letting through the light of a -lantern which revealed the black-and-white coif of a nun. - -“_Qui va là?_” - -Brand told her that we had come to see Miss O’Connor, and the gate was -opened wider and we went into the courtyard, where a young nun stood -smiling. She spoke in English. - -“We were always frightened when the bell rang during the German -occupation. One never knew what might happen. And we were afraid for -Miss O’Connor’s sake.” - -“Why?” asked Brand. - -The little nun laughed. - -“She did dangerous work. They suspected her. She came here after her -arrest. Before then she had rooms of her own. Oh, _messieurs_, her -courage, her devotion! Truly, she was heroic!” - -She led us into a long corridor with doors on each side, and out of one -door came a little group of nuns with Eileen O’Connor. - -The Irish girl came towards us with outstretched hands which she gave -first to Brand. She seemed excited at our coming and explained that the -Reverend Mother and all the nuns wanted to see us to thank England by -means of us, to hear something about the war and the chance of victory -from the first English officers they had seen. - -Brand was presented to the Reverend Mother, a massive old lady with a -slight moustache on the upper lip and dark luminous eyes, reminding me -of the portrait of Savonarola at Florence. The other nuns crowded round -us, eager to ask questions, still more eager to talk. Some of them were -quite young and pretty, though all rather white and fragile, and they -had a vivacious gaiety so that the building resounded with laughter. It -was Eileen O’Connor who made them laugh by her reminiscences of girlhood -when she and Brand were “_enfants terribles_,” when she used to pull -Brand’s hair and hide the pipe he smoked too soon. She asked him to take -off his field-cap so that she might see whether the same old unruly tuft -still stuck up at the back of his head, and she and all the nuns clapped -hands when she found it was so, in spite of war-worry and steel hats. -All this had to be translated into French for the benefit of those who -could not understand such rapid English. - -“I believe you would like to give it a tug now,” said Brand, bending his -head down, and Eileen O’Connor agreed. - -“And indeed I would, but for scandalising a whole community of nuns, to -say nothing of Reverend Mother.” - -The Reverend Mother laughed in a curiously deep voice, and a crowd of -little wrinkles puckered at her eyes. She told Miss O’Connor that even -her Irish audacity would not go as far as that, which was a challenge -accepted on the instant. - -“One little tug, for old times’ sake,” said the girl, and Brand yelped -with pretended pain at the vigour of her pull, while all the nuns -screamed with delight. - -Then a clock struck and the Reverend Mother touched Eileen (as -afterwards I called her) on the arm and said she would leave her with -her friends. One by one the nuns bowed to us, all smiling under their -white _bandeaux,_ and then went down the corridor through an open door -which led into a chapel, as we could see by twinkling candlelight. -Presently the music of an organ and of women’s voices came through the -closed doors. - -Eileen O’Connor took us into a little parlour where there were just four -rush chairs and a table, and on the clean whitewashed walls a crucifix. - -Brand took a chair by the table, rather awkwardly, I thought. - -“How gay they are!” he said. “They do not seem to have been touched by -the horrors of war.” - -“It is the gaiety of faith,” said Eileen. “How else could they have -survived the work they have done, the things they have seen? This -convent was a shambles for more than three years. These rooms were -filled with wounded, German wounded, and often English wounded, who were -prisoners. They were the worst cases for amputation and butcher’s work, -and the nuns did all the nursing. They know all there is to know of -suffering and death.” - -“Yet they have not forgotten how to laugh!” said Brand. “That is -wonderful. It is a mystery to me.” - -“You must have seen bad things,” said Eileen. “Have you lost the gift of -laughter?” - -“Almost,” said Brand, “and once for a long time.” - -Eileen put her hands to her breast. - -“Oh, learn it again,” she said. “If we cannot laugh we cannot work. Why, -I owe my life to a sense of humour.” - -She spoke the last words with more than a trivial meaning. They seemed -to tell of some singular episode, and Brand asked her to explain. - -She did not explain then. She only said some vague things about laughing -herself out of prison and stopping a German bullet with a smile. - -“Why did the devils put you in prison?” asked Brand. - -She shrugged her shoulders. - -“In Lille it was bad form if one had not been arrested once at least. I -was three weeks in a cell half the size of this, and twenty women were -with me there. There was very little elbow-room!” - -She proved her sense of humour then by that deep-throated laugh of hers, -but I noticed that just for a second behind the smile in her eyes -there crept a shadow as at the remembrance of some horror, and that she -shivered a little, as though some coldness had touched her. - -“It must have been like the Black Hole of Calcutta,” said Brand, -measuring the space with his eyes. “Twenty women herded in a room like -that!” - -“With me for twenty-one,” said Eileen. “We had no means of washing.” - -She used an awful phrase. - -“We were a living stench.” - -“Good God!” said Brand. - -Eileen O’Connor waved back the remembrance. “Tell me of England and of -Ireland. How’s the little Green Isle? Has it done well in the war?” - -“The Irish troops fought like heroes,” said Brand. - -“But there were not enough of them. Recruiting was slow, and there -was--some trouble.” - -He did not speak about the Irish Rebellion. - -“I heard about it vaguely, from prisoners,” said the girl. “It was -England’s fault, I expect. Dear old blundering, muddle-headed England, -who is a tyrant through fear, and twists Irish loyalty into treason by -ropes of red tape in which the Irish mind gets strangled and awry. -Well, there’s another subject to avoid. I want to hear only good things -to-night. Tell me of London, of Kensington Gardens, of the way from -Strand to Temple Bar, of the lights that gleam along the Embankment when -lovers go hand-in-hand and see stars in the old black river. Are they -all there?” - -“They are all changed,” said Brand. “It is a place of gloom. There are -no lights along the embankment. They have dowsed their glims for fear of -air-raids. There are few lovers hand-in-hand. Some of the boys lie dead -round Ypres, or somewhere on the Somme, or weep out of blind eyes, or -gibber in shell-shock homes, or try to hop on one leg--while waiting for -artificial limbs--or trudge on, to-night, towards Maubeuge, where German -machine-guns wait for them behind the ditches. Along the Strand goes -the painted flapper, luring men to hell. In Kensington Gardens there are -training camps for more boys ear-marked for the shambles, and here and -there among the trees young mothers who are widows before they knew -their wifehood. There is vice, the gaiety of madness, the unspeakable -callousness of people who get rich on war, or earn fat wages, and in -small stricken homes a world of secret grief. That is London in time of -war. I hate it.” - -Brand spoke with bitterness and a melancholy that startled the girl who -sat with folded hands below the crucifix on the whitewashed wall behind -her. - -“Dear God! Is it like that?” - -She stared at the wall opposite as though it were a window through which -she saw London. - -“Yes, of course it is like that. Here in Lille we thought we were -suffering more than anybody in the world. That was our egotism. We did -not realise--not in our souls--that everywhere in the world of war there -was equal suffering, the same cruelty, perhaps the same temptation to -despair.” - -Brand repented, I think, of having led the conversation into such -abysmal gloom. He switched off to more cheerful things and gave some -elaborate sketches of soldiers he knew, to which Eileen played up -with anecdotes of rare comedy about the nuns--the fat nun who under the -rigour of war rations became as slim as a willow and was vain of her new -grace; the little French mm who had no fear of German officers and dared -their fury by prophecies of defeat--but was terrified of a mouse in -the refectory; the Reverend Mother, who borrowed a safety-razor from an -English Tommy--he had hidden it in his shirt--to shave her upper lip, -lest the Germans should think her a French _poilu_ in disguise. - -More interesting to me than anything that was said were the things -unspoken by Eileen and Brand. In spite of the girl’s easy way of -laughter, her quick wit, her avoidance, if possible, of any reference -to her own suffering, I seemed to see in her eyes and in her face the -strain of a long ordeal, some frightful adventure of life in which she -had taken great hazards--the people had told me she had risked her life -often--and a woman’s courage which had been tested by that experience -and had not failed, though perhaps at breaking-point in the worst hours. -I supposed her age was twenty-six or so (I guessed it right this side -of a year), but there was already a streak of grey in her dark hair, -and her eyes, so smiling as a rule, looked as if they had often wept. -I think the presence of Brand was a great pleasure to her--bringing to -Lille a link with her childhood--and I saw that she was studying the -personality of this newly-found friend of hers, and the strong -character of his face, not unscathed by the touch of war, with curious, -penetrating interest. I felt in the way, and left them together with a -fair excuse--I had always work to do--and I was pleased that I did -so, they were so obviously glad to have a more intimate talk about old -friends and old times. - - - - -IX - - -I gained by my unselfishness (I did not want to go), for the Reverend -Mother met me in the corridor and stood talking, to me about Eileen -O’Connor, and told me part of the girl’s story, which I found strange -in its drama, though she left out the scene of greatest interest, as I -heard later from Eileen herself. - -The girl had come to Lille just before the war, as an art mistress in -an “_Ecole de Jeunes Filles_” (her parents in Kensington had too big a -family to keep them all), with lessons twice a week at the convent, and -private pupils in her own rooms. She learned to speak French quickly and -charmingly, and her gift of humour, her Irish frankness and comradeship -made her popular among her pupils, so that she had many invitations to -their homes and became well known in the best houses of Lille--mostly -belonging to rich manufacturers. A commonplace story till then. But -when the Germans occupied Lille this Irish girl became one of the chief -characters in a drama that was exciting and fantastic to the point of -melodrama. It was she who organised the Lille branch of a secret society -of women, with a network all over northern France and Belgium--the world -remembers Nurse Cavell at Brussels--for the escape of young civilians -of military age and prisoners of war, combining that work (frightfully -perilous) with espionage on German movements of troops and other facts -that might be of value to the Belgian Army, and through them to England -and France. It was out of an old book of Jules Verne called “The -Cryptogram” that she copied the cypher in which she wrote her messages -(in invisible ink on linen handkerchiefs and rags), and she had an -audacity of invention in numberless small tricks and plots which -constantly broke through the meshes of the German network of military -police. - -“She had a contempt for their stupidity,” said the Reverend Mother. -“Called them dunderheads, and one strange word of which I do not know -the meaning--‘yobs’--and I trembled at the risks she took.” - -She lived with one maid in two rooms on the ground floor of a house near -the Jardin d’Eté, the rest of the house being used as the headquarters -of the German Intelligence Section of the Northern District. All day -long officers went in and out, and by day and night there were always -sentries at the door. Yet it was there that was established also the -headquarters of the Rescue Committee. It was on account of her Irish -name and parentage that Eileen O’Connor was permitted to remain in the -two rooms to the left of the courtyard, entered by a separate door. The -German Kommandant was a man who firmly believed that the Irish nation -was ready to break out into revolt against the English, and that all -Irish--men and women--hated the British Empire as much as any Prussian. -Eileen O’Connor played up to this _idée fixe_, saw the value of it as -a wonderful means of camouflage, lent the Kommandant books on Irish -history dealing with the injustice of England to Ireland (in which -she firmly believed as a staunch Nationalist), and educated him so -completely to the belief that she was anti-English (as she was in -politics, though not in war) that he had no doubt of her. - -Here the Reverend Mother made a remark which seemed to illuminate Eileen -O’Connor’s story, as well as her own knowledge of human nature. - -“The child has beautiful eyes and a most sweet grace. Irish history may -not account for all.” - -“This German Kommandant,” I asked, “what sort of a man was he?” - -“For a German not altogether bad,” said the Reverend Mother. “Severe -and ruthless like them all, but polite when there was no occasion to -be violent. He was of good family, as far as there are such things in -Germany. A man of sixty.” - -Eileen O’Connor, with German permission, continued her work as art -mistress at the _Ecole de Jeunes Filles_. After six months she was -permitted to receive private pupils in her two rooms on the ground floor -of the Intelligence Headquarters, in the same courtyard, though not in -the same building. Her pupils came with drawing-boards and paint-boxes. -They were all girls with pigtails and short frocks--not so young as -they looked, because three or four at least, including the Baronne de -Villers-Auxicourt, were older than schoolgirls. They played the part -perfectly, and the sentries smiled at them and said, “_Guten Tag, -schönes Fraulein_,” as each one passed. They were the committee of the -Rescue Society: Julienne de Quesnoy, Marcelle Barbier, Yvonne Marigny, -Marguérite Cléry, and Alice de Taffin, de Villers-Auxicourt. - -Eileen O’Connor was the director and leading spirit. It seems to me -astonishing that they should have arranged the cypher, practised it, -written down military information gathered from German conversations -and reported to them by servants and agents under the very noses of the -German intelligence officers, who could see into the sitting-room as -they passed through French windows and saluted Eileen O’Connor and her -young ladies if they happened to meet their eyes. It is more astonishing -that, at different times, and one at a time, many fugitives (including -five British soldiers who had escaped from the Citadel) slept in the -cellar beneath that room, changed into German uniforms belonging to men -who had died at the convent hospital--the Reverend Mother did that part -of the plot--and walked quietly out in the morning by an underground -passage leading to the Jardin d’Eté. The passage had been anciently -built but was blocked up at one end by Eileen O’Connor’s cellar, and -she and the other women broke the wall, one brick at a time, until -after three months the hole was made. Their finger-nails suffered in the -process, and they were afraid that the roughness of their hands might -be noticed by the officers, but in spite of German spectacles they saw -nothing of that. Eileen O’Connor and her friends were in constant touch -with the prisoners of the Citadel and smuggled food to them. That -was easy. It was done by bribing the German sentries with tobacco and -meat-pies. They were also in communication with other branches of the -work in Belgium, so that fugitives were passed on from town to town, and -house to house. Their success made them confident, after many horrible -fears, and for a time they were lulled into a sense of security. -That was rudely crashed when Eileen O’Connor, the young Baronne de -Villers-Auxicourt, and Marcelle Barbier were arrested one morning in -September of ‘17 on a charge of espionage. They were put into separate -cells of the civil prison, crowded with the vilest women of the slums -and stews, and suffered something like torture because of the foul -atmosphere, the lack of sanitation and unspeakable abomination. - -“Only the spirit of Christian martyrdom could remain cheerful in such -terrible conditions,” said the Reverend Mother. “Our dear Eileen was -sustained by a great faith and wonderful gaiety. Her laughter, her -jokes, her patience, her courage, were an inspiration even to the poor -degraded women who were prisoners with her. They worshipped her. We, -her friends, gave her up for lost, though we prayed unceasingly that she -might escape death. Then she was brought to trial.” - -She stood alone in the court. The young Baronne de Villers-Auxicourt had -died in prison owing to the shock of her arrest and a weak heart. A -weak heart, though so brave. Eileen was not allowed to see her on her -deathbed, but she sent a message almost with her last breath. It was the -one word “courage!” Mlle. Marcelle Barbier was released before the trial -for lack of direct evidence. - -Eileen’s trial was famous in Lille. The court was crowded and the German -military tribunal could not suppress the loud expressions of sympathy -and admiration which greeted her, nor the angry murmurs which -interrupted the prosecuting officer. She stood there, wonderfully calm, -between two soldiers with fixed bayonets. She looked very young and -innocent between her guards, and it is evident that her appearance made -a favourable impression on the court. The President, after peering at -her through his horn spectacles, was not so ferocious in his manner as -usual when he bade her be seated. - -The evidence seemed very strong against her. “She is lost” was the -belief of all her friends in court. One of the sentries at the Citadel, -jealously savage because another man had received more tobacco than -himself--on such a trivial thing did this girl’s life hang--betrayed -the system by which the women’s committee sent food to the French -and English prisoners. He gave the names of three of the ladies and -described Eileen O’Connor as the ringleader. The secret police watched -her, and searched her rooms at night. They discovered the cypher and -the key, a list of men who had escaped, and three German uniforms in a -secret cupboard. They had been aided in their search by Lieutenant Franz -von Kreuzenach, of the Intelligence Bureau, who was the chief witness -for the prosecution, and whose name was recommended to the court for -the vigilance and zeal he had shown in the detection of the conspiracy -against the Army and the Fatherland. It was he who had found the secret -cupboard and had solved the key to the cypher. - -“We will take the lieutenant’s evidence in due course,” said the -President. “Does that complete the indictment against this prisoner?” - -Apart from a savage elaboration of evidence based upon the facts -presented and a demand that the woman’s guilt, if the court were -satisfied thereof, should be punished by death, the preliminary -indictment by the prosecution ended. - -It was a terrible case, and during its revelations the people in court -were stricken with dread and pity for the girl who was now sitting -between the two soldiers. They were all staring at her, and some at -least--the Reverend Mother among them--noticed with surprise that when -the officer for the prosecution ended his speech she drew a deep breath, -raised her head, as though some weight of fear had been lifted from her, -and--laughed. - -It was quite a merry laugh, with that full blackbird note of hers, and -the sound of it caused a strange sensation in the court. The President -blinked repeatedly, like an owl blinded by a ray of sunlight. He -addressed the prisoner in heavy, barbarous French. - -“You are charged with conspiracy against our German martial law. The -punishment is death. It is no laughing matter, Fraulein.” - -They were stem words, but there was a touch of pity in that last -sentence. - -“_Ce riest pas une affaire pour rire, Fràulein._” - -Eileen O’Connor, said the Reverend Mother, who was to be called as a -witness on her behalf, bowed in a gracious way to the President, -but with a look of amusement that was amazing to the German officers -assembled for her trial. Some of them scowled, but there were others, -the younger men, who whispered, and smiled also with no attempt to -disguise their admiration of such courage. - -“Perhaps it was only I,” said the Reverend Mother, “who understood the -child’s joyous relief which gave her this courage. I had waited with -terrible dread for the announcement of the discovery of the secret -passage. That it had been discovered I knew, for the German Lieutenant, -Franz von Kreuzenach, had come round to me and very sternly questioned -me about a case of medicine which he had found there, stamped with the -name of our convent.” - -“Then,” I said, “this Franz von Kreuzenach must have suppressed some of -the evidence. By what motive----” - -The Reverend Mother interrupted me, putting her hand on my sleeve with a -touch of protest. - -“The good God works through strange instruments, and may touch the -hardest heart with His grace. It was indeed a miracle.” - -I would give much to have been in that Court at Lille when Eileen -O’Connor was permitted to question the German lieutenant, who was the -chief witness against her. - -From what I have heard, not only from the Reverend Mother, but from -other people of Lille who were present at the trial, she played with -this German officer, making him look very foolish, ridiculing him in a -merry, contemptuous way before the court. Indeed, he seemed strangely -abashed before her. - -“The cypher!... Have you ever been a schoolboy, or were you born a -lieutenant in the German Army?” - -Franz von Kreuzenach admitted that he had once been a boy--to the -amusement of his brother officers. - -Had he ever read stories of adventure, fairy tales, romances, or did -he spend his childhood in the study of Nietzsche, Haegel, Schopenhauer, -Kant, Goethe, von Bemhardi, Karl Marx------- - -When she strung off these names--so incongruous in association--even the -President permitted a slight smile to twist his thin hard mouth. - -Franz von Kreuzenach said that he had read some fairy tales and stories -of adventure. Might he ask the _gnadiges Fraulein_---- - -“Yes,” said the President, “what has this to do with your case, -Fràulein? I desire to give you full liberty in your defence, but this is -entirely irrelevant to the evidence.” - -“It is my case!” cried Miss O’Connor. “Listen to the next question, Herr -President. It is the key of my defence.” - -Her next question caused laughter in court. - -“I ask the Herr Lieutenant whether, as a boy, or a young man, he has -read the romances of the French writer, Jules Verne?” - -Franz von Kreuzenach looked abashed, and blushed like a schoolboy. His -eyes fell before the challenging look of the Irish girl. - -“I have read some novels by Jules Verne, in German translations.” - -“Oh, in German translations--of course!” said Miss O’Connor. “German -boys do not learn French very well.” - -“Keep to the case,” said the President. “In heaven’s name, Fraulein, -what has this to do with your defence?” - -She raised her hand, for patience, and said, “Herr President, my -innocence will soon be clear.” - -She demanded of the witness for the prosecution whether he had ever read -the novel by Jules Verne called “The Cryptogram.” He said that he had -read it only a few days ago. He had discovered it in her room. - -Eileen O’Connor turned round eagerly to the President. - -“I demand the production of that book.” - -An orderly was sent to the lieutenant’s rooms to fetch it. It was clear -that the President of the Court made a black mark against Franz von -Kreuzenach for not having mentioned its discovery to the Court. As yet, -however, he could not see the bearing of it on the case. - -Then, with the book in her hand, Eileen O’Connor turned to the famous -cryptogram, showed how it corresponded exactly with her own cypher, -proved that the pieces of paper found in her rooms were copies of the -Jules Verne cypher in the handwriting of her pupils. - -“You see, Herr President!” she cried eagerly. - -The President admitted that this was proved, but, as he asked, leaning -forward in his chair, for what purpose had they copied out that cypher? -Cyphers were dangerous things to write in time of war. Deadly things. -Why did these ladies want to learn the cypher? - -It was then that Eileen O’Connor was most brilliant. She described in -a simple and girlish way how she and her pupils worked in their little -room. While they copied freehand models, one of them read out to the -others, books of romance, love, adventure, to forget the gloom of -life and the tragedy of war. One of those books was Jules Verne’s -“Cryptogram.” It had fascinated them. It had made them forget the -misery of war. They were romantic girls, imaginative girls. Out of sheer -merriment, to pass the hours, they had tried to work out the cypher. -They had written love-letters to imaginary young men in those secret -numbers. Here Eileen, smiling ironically, read out specimens of the -letters that had been found. - -“Come to the corner of the Rue Esquermoise at 9.45. You will know me -because I shall be wearing a blue bow in a black hat.” - -That was the romantic imagination of the Baronne de Villers-Auxicourt. - -“When you see a lady standing outside the Jardin d’Eté, with a little -brown dog, speak to her in French and say, ‘_Comme il fait froid -aujourd’hui, mademoiselle_.’ If she answers, ‘_Je ne vous comprends -pas, monsieur_,’ you will understand that she is to be trusted, and you -must follow her.” - -That was a romantic idea to which Eileen herself pleaded guilty. - -“Herr President,” said Eileen, “you cannot put old heads on young -shoulders, even in time of war. A party of girls will let their foolish -little minds run upon ideas of love, even when the sound of guns is not -far away. You, Herr President, will understand that perfectly.” - -Perhaps there was something in the character of the President that made -this a chance hit. All the German officers laughed, and the President -shifted in his seat and flushed to the top of his bald, vulture-like -head. - -The possession of those German uniforms was also explained in the -prettiest way by Eileen O’Connor. They were uniforms belonging to three -handsome young German soldiers who had died in hospital. They had kept -them to return to their mothers after the war, those poor German mothers -who were weeping for their sons. This part of her defence touched the -German officers deeply. One of them had tears in his eyes. - -The list of escaped fugitives was harder to explain, but again an Irish -imagination succeeded in giving it an innocent significance. It had been -compiled by a prisoner in the Citadel and given to Eileen as a proof -that his own hope of escape was not in vain, though she had warned him -of the fearful risk. “The poor man gave me the list in sheer simplicity, -and in innocence I kept it.” - -Simply and touchingly she admitted her guilt in smuggling food to French -and British prisoners, and to German sentries, and claimed that her -fault was only against military regulations, but in humanity was -justified. - -“I am Irish,” she said. “I have in my heart the remembrance of English -crimes to Ireland--old, unforgettable crimes that still cry out for the -justice and the liberty which are denied my country.” - -Some of the younger German officers shook their heads approvingly. -They liked this Irish hatred of England. It was according to their -text-books. - -“But,” said the Irish girl, “the sufferings of English prisoners--you -know here of their misery, their hunger, their weakness in that Citadel -where many have died and are dying--stirred my compassion as a woman -to whom all cruelty is tragic, and all suffering of men a call to that -mother-love which is in the spirit of all their womanhood, as you know -by your German women--as I hope you know. Because they were starved -I tried to get them food, as I would to starving dogs or any poor -creatures caught in the trap of war or of men’s sport. To that I confess -guilty, with gladness in my guilt.” - -The Reverend Mother, standing there in the whitewashed corridor of the -convent, in the flickering light of an oil lantern, which gleamed on the -white ruff round her neck and the silver cross on her breast, though her -face was shadowed in the cavern of her black headdress, repeated this -speech of Eileen O’Connor as though in hearing it first she had learnt -it by heart. - -“The child was divinely inspired, monsieur. Our Lady stood by her side, -prompting her. I am sure of that.” - -The trial lengthened out, until it was late in the evening when the -judge summed up. He spoke again of the gravity of the accusation, the -dread punishment that must befall the prisoner if her guilt were proved, -the weight of evidence against her. For a time he seemed to press her -guilt heavily, and the court was gloomy. The German officers looked -grave. One thing happened in the course of his speech which affected the -audience profoundly. It was when he spoke of the romantic explanation -that had been offered by the prisoner regarding the secret cypher. - -“This lady,” he said, “asks me to believe that she and her companions -were playing a simple girlish game of make-believe. Writing imaginary -letters to mythical persons. Were these young ladies--nay, is she, -herself--so lacking in woman’s charm that she has no living man to love -her, and needs must write fictitious notes to nonexistent men?” - -The President said these words with portentous solemnity. Perhaps only -a German could have spoken them. He paused and blinked at the German -officers below him. Suddenly into the silence of the court came a ripple -of laughter, clear and full of most mirthful significance. - -Eileen O’Connor’s laugh bewitched the crowded court, and there was a -roar of laughter, in which all the officers joined. By that laugh more -even than by her general gaiety, her courage and eloquence, she won her -life. - -“I said a decade of the rosary to our Blessed Lady,” said the Reverend -Mother, “and thanked God that this dear child’s life would not be taken. -I was certain that those men would not condemn her to death. She was -acquitted on the charge of espionage, and sentenced to two weeks’ -imprisonment for smuggling food to prisoners, by a verdict of seven -against three. Only when she left the court did she fall into so deep a -swoon that for a little while we thought her dead.” - -The Reverend Mother had told her story well. She held me in a deep -strained interest. It was rather to myself than to her that I spoke the -words which were my comment at the end of this narrative. - -“How splendid!... But I am puzzled about that German lieutenant, Franz -von Kreuzenach. He kept the real evidence back.” - -“That,” said the Reverend Mother solemnly, “was a great mystery, and a -miracle.” - -Wickham Brand joined us in the passage, with Eileen O’Connor by his -side. - -“Not gone yet?” said Wickham. - -“I have been listening to the tale of a woman’s courage,” I said, and -when Eileen gave me her hand, I raised it to my lips, in the French -style, though not in gallantry. - -“Reverend Mother,” she said, “has been exalting me to the seventh heaven -of her dear heart.” - -On my way back to Brand’s mess I told him all I had heard about Eileen’s -trial, and I remember his enthusiasm. - -“Fine! Thank heaven there are women like that in this blood-soaked -world. It saves one from absolute despair.” - -He made no comment about the suppression of evidence, which was a puzzle -to me. - -We parted with a “So long, old man,” outside his headquarters, and I did -not see him until a few days later. - - - - -X - - -It was Frederick E. Small, the American doctor attached to Brand’s -crowd, who was with me on a night in Lille, before the armistice, when -by news from the colonel we were stirred by the tremendous hope--almost -a certainty--that the end of the war was near. I had been into Courtrai, -which the enemy had first evacuated and then was shelling. It was not a -joyous entry like that into Lille. Most of the people were still down -in their cellars, where for several days they had been herded together -until the air became foul. On the outskirts I had passed many groups -of peasants with their babies and old people, trudging past our guns, -trekking from one village to another in search of greater safety, or -standing in the fields where our artillery was getting into action, and -where new shell craters should have warned them away, if they had had -more knowledge of war. For more than four years I had seen, at different -periods, crowds like that, after the first flight of fugitives in -August of ‘14, when the world seemed to have been tilted up and great -populations in France and Belgium were in panic-stricken retreat from -the advancing edge of war. I knew the types, the attitudes, the very -shape of the bundles, in these refugee processions, the haggard look of -the mothers pushing their perambulators, the bewildered look of old men -and women, the tired sleepy look of small boys and girls, the stumbling -dead-beat look of old farm horses dragging carts piled high with -cottage furniture. As it was at the beginning so it was at the end--for -civilians caught in the fires of war. With two other men I went into the -heart of Courtrai and found it desolate, and knew the reason why, when, -at the corner of the Grande Place, a heavy shell came howling and burst -inside a house with frightful explosive noise, followed by a crash of -masonry. The people were wise to keep to their cellars. Two girls, -not so wise, made a dash from one house to another, and were caught by -chunks of steel and killed close to the church of St. Martin, where they -lay all crumpled up in a clotted pool of blood. A man came up to me, -utterly careless of such risks, and I hated to stand talking to him with -the shells coming every half-minute overhead. - -There was a fire of passion in his eyes, and at every sentence he spoke -to me his voice rose and thrilled as he denounced the German race for -all they had done in Courtrai, for their robberies, their imprisonments, -their destruction of machinery, their brutality. The last Kommandant of -Courtrai was von Richthofen, father of the German aviator, and he was a -hard, ruthless man, and kept the city under an iron rule. - -“All that, thank God, is finished now,” said the man. “The English have -delivered us from the beast!” As he spoke, another monstrous shell came -overhead, but he took no notice of it, and said, “We are safe now from -the enemy’s evil power!” It seemed to me a comparative kind of safety. -I had no confidence in it when I sat in the parlour of an old lady who, -like Eileen O’Connor, in Lille, had been an Irish governess in Courtrai, -and who now, living in miserable poverty, sat in a bed-sitting-room -whose windows and woodwork had been broken by shell-splinters. “Do you -mind shutting the door, my dear?” she said. “I can’t bear those nasty -bombs.” I realised with a large, experienced knowledge that we might be -torn to fragments of flesh at any moment by one of those nasty “bombs,” - which were really eight-inch shells; but the old lady did not worry, and -felt safe when the door was shut. - -Outside Courtrai, when I left, lay some khaki figures in a mush of -blood. They were lads whom I had seen unloading ammunition that morning -on the bank of the canal. One had asked me for a light, and said, -“What’s all this peace talk?... Any chance?” A big chance, I had told -him. Home for Christmas, certain sure this time. The boy’s eyes had -lighted up for a moment, quicker than the match which he held in the cup -of his hands. - -“Jesus! Back for good, eh?” - -Then the light went out of his eyes as the match flared up. - -“We’ve heard that tale a score of times. ‘The Germans are weakening. The -Huns ‘ave ‘ad enough!...’ Newspaper talk. A man would be a mug----” - -Now the boy lay in the mud, with half his body blown away.... I was glad -to get back to Lille for a spell, where there were no dead bodies in the -roads. And the colonel’s news, straight from G.H.Q.--which, surely, were -not playing up the old false optimism again!--helped one to hope that, -perhaps, in a week or two the last boys of our race, the lucky ones, -would be reprieved from that kind of bloody death which I had seen so -often, so long, so heaped up, in many fields of France and Flanders, -where the flower of our youth was killed. - -Dr. Small was excited by the hope brought back by Colonel Lavington. He -sought me out in my billet, _Madame Chéri_, and begged me to take a walk -with him. (It was a moonlight night, but no double throb of a German -air-engine came booming over Lille.) He walked at a hard pace, with -the collar of his “British warm” tucked up to his ears, and talked in a -queer disjointed monologue, emotionally, whimsically. I remember some -of his words, more or less--anyhow, the gist of his thoughts, “I’m not -worrying any more about how the war will end. We’ve won! Remarkable, -that, when one thinks back to the time, less than a year ago, when the -best thing seemed a draw. I’m thinking about the future. What’s the -world going to be afterwards? That’s my American mind--the next job, so -to speak.” - -He thought hard while we paced round our side of the Jardin d’Eté, where -the moonlight made the bushes glamorous and streaked the tree trunks -with a silver line. - -“This war is going to have prodigious effects on nations; on -individuals, too. I’m scared. We’ve all been screwed up to an intense -pitch--every nerve in us is beyond the normal stretch of nature. After -the war there will be a sudden relaxing. We shall be like bits of chewed -elastic. Rather like people who have drugged themselves to get through -some big ordeal. After the ordeal their nerves are all ragged. They -crave the old stimulus, though they dread it. They’re depressed--don’t -know what’s the matter--get into sudden rages--hysterical--can’t settle -to work--go out for gaiety and get bored. I’ve seen it many times in -bad cases. Europe--yes, and America, too--is going to be a bad case. A -neurotic world--Lord, it’ll take some healing!” - -For a time his thoughts wandered round the possible terms of peace and -the abasement of Germany. He prophesied the break-up of Germany, the -downfall of the Emperor and of other thrones. - -“Crowns will be as cheap as twenty cents,” he said. He hoped for the -complete overthrow of Junkerdom--“all the dirty dogs,” as he called the -Prussian war lords and politicians. But he hoped the Allies would be -generous with the enemy peoples--“magnanimous” was the word he used. - -“We must help the spirit of democracy to rise among them,” he said. “We -must make it easy for them to exorcise the devil. If we press them too -hard, put the screw on to the torture of their souls (defeat will be -torture to a proud people), they will nourish a hope of vengeance and go -back to their devil for hope.” - -I asked him whether he thought his President would lead the world to a -nobler stage of history. - -He hesitated at that, groped a little, I thought, among old memories and -prejudices. - -“Why,” he said, “Wilson has the biggest chance that ever came to a human -being--the biggest chance and the biggest duty. We are rich (too darned -rich) and enormously powerful when most other peoples are poor and -weak--drained of wealth and blood. That’s our luck, and a little bit, -perhaps, our shame, though our boys have done their bit all right -and are ready to do more; and it’s not their fault they weren’t here -before--but we’re hardly touched by this war as a people, except -spiritually. There we’ve been touched by the finger of Fate. (God, if -you like that better!) So, with that strength behind him, the President -is in a big way of business. He can make his voice heard, stand for a -big idea. God, sonny, I hope he’ll do it! For the world’s sake, for the -sake of all these suffering people, here in this city of Lille, and in a -million little towns where people have been bashed by war.” - -I asked him if he doubted Wilson’s greatness, and the question -embarrassed him. - -“I’m loyal to the man,” he said. “I’ll back him if he plays straight and -big. Bigness, that’s what we want. Bigness of heart as well as bigness -of brain. Oh, he’s clever, though not wise in making so many enemies. -He has fine ideas and can write real words. Things which speak. True -things. I’d like to be sure of his character--its breadth and strength, -I mean. The world wants a nobleman, bigger than the little gentlemen of -politics; a leader calling to the great human heart of our tribes and -lifting them, with one grand gesture, out of the mire of old passions -and vendettas and jealousies to a higher plane of--common sense. Out of -the jungle to the daylight of fellowship. Out of the jungle.” - -He repeated those words twice, with a reverent solemnity. He believed -that so much emotion had been created in the heart of the world that, -when the war ended, anything might happen if a leader came--a new -religion of civilisation, any kind of spiritual and social revolution. - -“We might kill cruelty,” he said. “My word, what a victory that would -be!” - - - - -XI - - -Our conversation was interrupted by a figure that slipped out of the -darkness of some doorway, hesitated before us, and then spoke in French. - -“You are English officers? May I speak with you?” - -It was a girl, whom I could see only vaguely in the darkness--she stood -in the shadow of a doorway beyond the moonlight--and I answered her that -I was English and my friend American. - -“Is there any way,” she asked, “of travelling from Lille, perhaps to -Paris? In a motor car, for example? To-night?” - -I laughed at this startling request, put so abruptly. It was already -nine o’clock at night! - -“Not the smallest chance in the world, mademoiselle! Paris is far from -Lille.” - -“I was stupid,” said the girl. “Not all the way to Paris, but to some -town outside Lille. Any town. There are motor cars always passing -through the streets. I thought if I could get a little place in one----” - -“It is difficult,” I said. “As a matter of fact, it is forbidden for -officers to take civilians except in case of saving them from danger--in -shelled places.” - -She came suddenly out of the shadow into the moonlight, and I saw that -she was a girl with red hair and a face strangely white. I knew by the -way she spoke--the accent--as well as by the neatness of her dress, that -she was not a working-girl. She was trembling painfully, and took hold -of my arm with both her hands. - -“Monsieur, I beg of you to help me. I beseech you to think of some way -in which I may get away from Lille to-night. It is a matter of extreme -importance to me.” - -A group of young men and women came up the street arm-in-arm, shouting, -laughing, singing the “Marseillaise.” They were civilians, with two of -our soldiers among them, wearing women’s hats. - -Before I could answer the girl’s last words, she made a sudden retreat -into the dark doorway, and I could see dimly that she was cowering back. - -Dr. Small spoke to me. “That girl is scared of something. The poor child -has got the jim-jams.” - -I went closer to her and heard her breathing. It was quite loud. It was -as though she were panting after hard running. - -“Are you ill?” I asked. - -She did not answer until the group of civilians had passed. They did not -pass at once, but stood for a moment looking up at a light burning in -an upper window. One of the men shouted something in a loud voice--some -word in _argot_--which I did not understand, and the women screeched -with laughter. Then they went on, dancing with linked arms, and our two -soldiers in the women’s hats lurched along with them. - -“I am afraid!” said the girl. - -“Afraid of what?” I asked. - -I repeated the question--“Why are you afraid, mademoiselle?”--and she -answered by words which I had heard a million times since the war began -as an explanation of all trouble, tears, ruin, misery. - -“_C’est la guerre!_” - -“Look out!” said the little doctor. “She’s fainting.” - -She had risen from her cowering position and stood upright for a moment, -with her hand against the doorpost. Then she swayed, and would have -fallen if the doctor had not caught her. Even then she fell, -indeed, though without hurt, because he could not support her sudden -weight--though she was of slight build--and they sank together in a kind -of huddle on the doorstep. - -“For the love of Mike!” said Dr. Small. He was on his knees before her -now, chafing her cold hands. She came to in about a minute, and I leaned -over her and asked her where she lived, and made out from her faint -whisper that she lived in the house to which this doorway belonged, in -the upper room where the light was burning. With numbed fingers--“cold -as a toad,” said “Daddy” Small--she fumbled at her bodice and drew out a -latchkey. - -“We had better carry her up,” I said, and the doctor nodded. - -The front door opened into a dimly-lit passage, uncarpeted, and with -leprous-looking walls. At one end was a staircase with heavy banisters. -The doctor and I supported the girl, who was able to walk a little now, -and managed to get her to the first landing. - -“Where?” I asked, and she said, “Opposite.” - -It was the front room looking on to the street. A lamp was burning on -the round table in the centre of the room, and I saw by the light of it -the poverty of the furniture and its untidiness. At one end of the room -was a big iron bedstead with curtains of torn lace, and on the wooden -chairs hung some soiled petticoats and blouses. There was a small -cooking-stove in a corner, but no charcoal burned in it, and I remember -an ebony-framed mirror over the mantelpiece. I remember that mirror -vividly. I remember, for instance, that a bit of the ebony had broken -off, showing the white plaster underneath, and a crack in the right-hand -corner of the looking-glass. - -Probably my eyes were attracted to it because of a number of photographs -stuck into the framework. They were photographs of a girl in a variety -of stage costumes; and glancing at the girl, whom the doctor had put -into a low arm-chair, I saw that they were of her. But with all the -tragic difference between happiness and misery; worse than that--between -unscathed girlhood and haggard womanhood. This girl with red hair and -a white waxen face was pretty still. There was something more than -prettiness in the broadness of her brow and the long tawny lashes that -were now veiling her closed eyes as she sat with her head back against -the chair, showing a long white throat. But her face was lined with an -imprint of pain, and her mouth, rather long and bow-like, was drawn with -a look of misery. - -The doctor spoke to me--in English, of course. - -“Half-starved, I should say. Or starved.” - -He sniffed at the stove and the room generally. - -“No sign of recent cooking.” - -He opened a cupboard and looked in. - -“Nothing in the pantry, sonny. I guess the girl would do with a meal.” - -I did not answer him. I was staring at the photographs stuck into -the mirror, and saw one that was not a girl’s portrait. It was the -photograph of a young French lieutenant. I crossed the room and looked -at it closer, and then spoke to the little doctor in a curiously -unexcited voice, as one does in moments of living drama. - -“This girl is Pierre Nesle’s sister.” - -“For the love of Mike!” said the little doctor, for the second time that -night. - -The girl heard the name of Pierre Nesle and opened her eyes wide, with a -wondering look. - -“Pierre Nesle? That is my brother. Do you know him?” - -I told her that I knew him well and had seen him in Lille, where he was -looking for her, two days ago. He was now in the direction of Courtrai. - -The girl was painfully agitated and uttered pitiful words. - -“Oh, my little brother!” she murmured. “My dear little comrade!” She -rose from her chair, steadying herself with one hand on the back of it, -and with feverish anxiety said that she must go at once. She must leave -Lille. - -“Why?” I asked. “Why do you want to leave Lille?” - -“I am afraid!” she answered again, and burst into tears. - -I turned to the doctor and translated her words. - -“I can’t understand this fear of hers--this desire to leave Lille.” - -Dr. Small had taken something off the mantelpiece--a glass tube with -some tablets--which he put in his pocket. - -“Hysteria,” he said. “Starvation, war-strain, and--drugs. There’s a -jolly combination for a young lady’s nerves! She’s afraid of herself, -old ghosts, the horrors. Wants to run away from it all, forgetting that -she carries her poor body and brain with her. I know the symptoms--even -in little old New York in time of peace.” - -He had his professional manner. I saw the doctor through his soldier’s -uniform. He spoke with the authority of the medical man in a patient’s -bedroom. He ordered me to go round to my mess and bring back some -food, while he boiled up a kettle and got busy. When I returned, after -half-an-hour, the girl was more cheerful. Some of the horrors had passed -from her in the doctor’s company. She ate some of the food I had brought -in a famished way, but after a few mouthfuls sickened at it and would -eat no more. But a faint colour had come into her cheeks and gave -her face a touch of real beauty. She must have been extraordinarily -attractive before the war--as those photographs showed. She spoke of -Pierre with adoration. He had been all that was good to her before she -left home (she hated her mother!) to sing in cabarets and café concerts. - -“I cannot imagine Pierre as a lieutenant!” she remarked, with a queer -little laugh. - -Dr. Small said he would get some women in the house to look after her in -the night, but she seemed hostile to that idea. - -“The people here are unkind. They are bad women here. If I died they -would not care.” - -She promised to stay in the house until we could arrange for Pierre to -meet her and take her away to Paris. But I felt the greatest pity for -the girl when we left her alone in her miserable room. The scared look -had come back to her face. I could see that she was in terror of being -alone again. - -When we walked back to our billets the doctor spoke of the extraordinary -chance of meeting the girl like that--the sister of our _liaison_ -officer. The odds were a million to one against such a thing. - -“I always feel there’s a direction in these cases,” said Daddy Small. -“Some Hand that guides. Maybe you and I were being led to-night. I’d -like to save that girl, Marthe.” - -“Is that her name?” - -“Marthe de Méricourt, she calls herself, as a singing-girl. I guess -that’s why Pierre could not hear of her in this town.” - -Later on the doctor spoke again. - -“That girl is as much a war victim as if she had been shell-shocked -on the field of battle. The casualty lists don’t say anything about -civilians, not a darned thing about broken hearts, stricken women, -diseased babies, infant mortality--all the hell of suffering behind the -lines. May God curse all war devils!” - -He put his hand on my shoulder and said in a very solemn way: “After -this thing is finished--this grisly business--you and I, and all men of -goodwill, must put our heads together to prevent it happening again. I -dedicate whatever life I have to that.” - -He seemed to have a vision of hope. - -“There are lots of good fellows in the world. Wickham Brand is one -of ‘em. Charles Fortune is another. One finds them everywhere on your -side and mine. Surely we can get together when peace comes and make a -better System somehow!” - -“Not easy, doctor.” - -He laughed at me. - -“I hate your pessimism!... We must get a message to Pierre Nesle.... -Good-night, sonny!” - -On the way back to my billet I passed young Clatworthy. - -He was too engrossed to see me, having his arm round a girl who was -standing with him under an unlighted lamp-post. She was looking up into -his face on which the moonlight shone--a pretty creature, I thought. - -“_Je t’adore!_” she murmured, as I passed quite close; and Clatworthy -kissed her. - -I knew the boy’s mother and sisters, and wondered what they would think -of him if they saw him now with this little street-walker. To them -Cyril was a white knight _sans peur et sans reproche_. The war had not -improved him. He was no longer the healthy lad who had been captain -of his school, with all his ambition in sport, as I had known him five -years before. Sometimes, in spite of his swagger and gallantry, I saw -something sinister in his face, the look of a soiled soul. Poor kid! He, -too, would have his excuse for all things: - -“_C’est la guerre!_” - - - - -XII - - -It was five o’clock on the following evening that I saw the girl Marthe -again. The doctor and I had arranged to go round to her lodging after -dinner, by which time we hoped to have a letter for her from Pierre, by -despatch-rider. But Brand was with me in the afternoon, having looked -into my billet with an English conversation-book for Hélène, who was -anxious to study our way of speech. Madame Chéri insisted upon giving -him a glass of wine, and we stood talking in her drawing-room a while -about the certain hope of victory, and then trivial things. Hélène was -delighted with her book and Brand had a merry five minutes with her, -teaching her to pronounce the words. - -“_C’est effroyable!_” cried Hélène. “‘Through’... ‘Tough’ ‘Cough ‘... -_Mon Dieu, comme c’est difficile!_ There is no rule in your tongue.” - -Madame Chéri spoke of Edouard, her eldest boy, who had disappeared into -the great silence, and gave me a photograph of him, in case I should -meet him in our advance towards the Rhine. She kissed the photograph -before giving it to me, and said a few words which revealed her strong -character, her passionate patriotism. - -“If he had been four years older he would have been a soldier of France. -I should have been happy if he could have fought for his country, and -died for it, like my husband.” - -Brand and I left the house and went up towards the Grande Place. I was -telling him about Pierre Nesle’s sister and our strange meeting with her -the night before. - -“I’m precious glad,” said Brand, “that no sister of mine was behind -German lines. God knows how much they had to endure. Imagine their -risks! It was a lucky escape for that girl Hélène. Supposing she had -failed to barricade her door?” - -When we came into the Grande Place we saw that something was happening. -It was almost dark after a shadowy twilight, but we could see a crowd of -people surging round some central point of interest. Many of them were -laughing loudly. There was some joke in progress. The women’s tongues -sounded most loud and shrill. - -“They’re getting back to gaiety,” said Brand. “What’s the jest, I -wonder?” - -A gust of laughter came across the square. Above it was another sound, -not so pleasant. It was a woman’s shrieks--shriek after shriek, most -blood-curdling, and then becoming faint. - -“What the devil----!” said Brand. - -We were on the edge of the crowd and I spoke to a man there. - -“What’s happening?” - -He laughed in a grim way. - -“It’s the _coiffure_ of a lady.. They are cutting her hair.” - -I was mystified. - -“Cutting her hair?” - -A woman spoke to me, by way of explanation, laughing like the man. - -“Shaving her head, monsieur. She was one of those who were too -complaisant with German officers. You understand? There were many of -them. They ought to have their heads cut off as well as their hair.” - -Another man spoke gruffly. - -“There would be a good many headless corpses if that were so. To their -shame be it said. It was abominable. No pride. No decency.” - -“But the worst will escape,” said another. “In private houses. The -well-dressed demoiselles!” - -“_Tuez-les!_” cried a woman. “_Tuez-les!_” - -It was a cry for killing, such as women had screamed when pretty -aristocrats were caught by the mobs of the French Revolution. - -“My God!” said Brand. - -He shouldered his way through the crowd, and I followed him. The people -made a gap for us, seeing our uniforms, and desired us to enjoy the -joke. What I saw when I came closer was a group of young men holding a -limp figure. One of them was brandishing a large pair of scissors, as -large as shears. Another held up a tangled mass of red hair. - -“_Regardez!_” he shouted to the crowd, and they cheered and laughed. - -I had seen the hair before, as I knew when I saw a girl’s face, -dead-white, lifeless, as it seemed, and limp against a man’s shoulder. - -“It is Marthe!” I said to Brand. “Pierre Nesle’s sister.” - -A curious sense of faintness overcame me, and I felt sick. - -Brand did not answer me, but I saw his face pale under its tan. He -pushed forward through the crowd and I lost sight of him for a few -moments. After that I saw him carrying the girl; above the heads of the -people, I saw her head flopping from side to side horribly, a head with -close-cropped hair. They had torn her clothes off her shoulders, which -were bleeding. - -“Help me,” said Brand. - -I am not quite clear what happened. I have only a vague remembrance of -the crowd making way for us, with murmurs of surprise and some hostile -cries of women. I remember helping Brand to carry the girl--enormously -heavy she seemed with her dead weight--but how we managed to get her -into Dr. Small’s car is to this day a blank in my mind. We must have -seen and hailed him at the corner of the Grande Place as he was going -back to his billet. I have a distinct recollection of taking off my -Burberry and laying it over the girl, who was huddled in the back of -the car, and of Brand saying, “Where can we take her?” I also remember -trying to light a cigarette and using many matches which went out in the -wind. It was Brand’s idea that we should go to Madame Chéri’s house for -sanctuary, and by the time we had driven to that place we had left the -crowd behind and were not followed. - -“You go in and explain things,” said Brand. “Ask Madame to give the girl -a refuge.” - -I think Madame Chéri was startled by the sight of the car, and perhaps -by some queer look I had. I told her what had happened. This girl was -the sister of Pierre Nesle, whom Madame Chéri had met. The crowd, for -some reason, had cut off her hair. Would Madame save the poor child, who -was unconscious? - -I shall never forget the face or speech of that lady, whom I had found -so kind. She drew herself up very stiffly and a relentless expression -hardened her face. - -“If you were not English I should say you desired to insult me, sir. -The people have cut off the creature’s hair. ‘For some reason,’ you say. -There is only one reason. Because she was faithless to her country and -to her sex, and was familiar with men who were the enemies of France, -the murderers of our men, robbers and assassins. She has been well -punished. I would rather burn down my house than give her shelter. If -they gave her to the dogs to tear in pieces I would not lift my little -finger to save her.” - -Hélène came in, and was surprised at the emotion of her mother’s voice. - -“What is it, little _maman?_” - -Madame Chéri regained control of herself, which for a moment she had -lost in a passion that shook her. - -“It is a little matter. This officer and I have been talking about vile -people who sold themselves to our enemy. He understands perfectly.” - -“I understand,” I said gravely. “There is a great deal of cruelty in the -world, madame, and less charity than I had hoped.” - -“There is, praise be to God, a little justice,” said Madame Chéri very -calmly. - -“_Au revoir, madame!_” - -“_Au revoir, monsieur!_” - -“_Au revoir, mademoiselle!_” - -I was shocked then at the callousness of the lady. It seemed to me -incredible. Now I am no longer shocked, but understand the horror that -was hers, the loathing for a daughter of France who had--if the mob -were not mistaken--violated the code of honour which enabled the French -people to resist German brutality, even German kindness, which they -hated worse, with a most proud disdain. That girl outside, bleeding and -senseless in the car, had been friendly with German officers, notorious -in her company with them. Otherwise she would not have been seized by -the crowd and branded for shame. There was a fierce protective instinct -which hardened Madame Chéri against charity. Only those who have -seen what war means to women close to it, in enemy hands, may truly -understand, and, understanding, curse war again for all its destruction -of souls and bodies. - - - - -XIII - - -Brand and Dr. Small were both astonished and indignant. - -“Do you mean to say she shuts her door against this poor bleeding girl?” - said Brand. - -The American doctor did not waste words. He only used words when there -was no action on hand. - -“The next place?” he said. “A hospital?” - -I had the idea of the convent where Eileen O’Connor lodged. There was -a sanctuary. Those nuns were vowed to Christian charity. They would -understand and have pity. - -“Yes,” said Brand, and he called to the driver. - -We drove hard to the convent, and Brand was out of the car before it -stopped, and rang the bell with such a tug that we heard it jangling -loudly in the courtyard. - -It seemed long before the little wicket opened and a woman’s voice said, -“_Qui est la?_” - -Brand gave his name and said, “Open quickly, _ma sour_. We have a woman -here who is ill.” - -The gate was opened, and Brand and I lifted out the girl, who was still -unconscious, but moaning slightly, and carried her into the courtyard, -and thence inside the convent to the whitewashed passage where I had -listened so long to the Reverend Mother telling me of the trial scene. - -It was the Reverend Mother who came now, with two of her nuns, while the -little portress stood by, clasping her hands. - -“An accident?” said the Reverend Mother. “How was the poor child hurt?” - -She bent over the girl, Marthe--Pierre Nesle’s sister, as I remembered -with an added pity--pulled my Burberry from her face and shoulders and -glanced at the bedraggled figure there. - -“Her hair has been cut off,” said the old nun. “That is strange! There -are the marks of finger-nails on her shoulder. What violence was it, -then?” - -Brand described the rescue of the girl from the mob, who would have -torn her to pieces, and as he spoke I saw a terrible look come into the -Reverend Mother’s face. - -“I remember--1870,” she said harshly. “They cut the hair of women who -had disgraced themselves--and France--by their behaviour with German -soldiers. We thought then that it was a light punishment... we think so -now, monsieur!” - -One of the nuns, a young woman who had been touching the girl’s head, -smoothing back her tousled, close-cropped hair, sprang up as though she -had touched an evil thing and shrank back. - -Another nun spoke to the Reverend Mother. - -“This house would be defiled if we took in a creature like that. God -forbid, Reverend Mother----” - -The old Superior turned to Brand, and I saw how her breast was heaving -with emotion. - -“It would have been better, sir, if you had left this wretched woman to -the people. The voice of the people is sometimes the voice of God. If -they knew her guilt their punishment was just. Reflect what it means to -us--to all our womanhood. Husbands, fathers, brothers were being killed -by these Germans. Our dear France was bleeding to death. Was there any -greater crime than that a Frenchwoman should show any weakness, any -favour, to one of those men who were helping to cause the agony of -France, the martyrdom of our youth?” - -Brand stammered out a few words. I remember only two: “Christian -charity!” - -The American doctor and I stood by silently. Dr. Small was listening -with the deepest attention, as though some new truth about human nature -were being revealed to him. - -It was then that a new voice was raised in that whitewashed corridor. -It was Eileen O’Connor’s Irish contralto, and it vibrated with -extraordinary passion as she spoke in French. - -“Reverend Mother!... I am dismayed by the words you have spoken. I do -not believe, though my ears have heard them. No, they are unbelievable! -I have seen your holiness, your charity, every day for four years, -nursing German prisoners, and English, with equal tenderness, with a -great pity. Not shrinking from any horror or the daily sight of -death, but offering it all as a sacrifice to God. And now, after our -liberation, when we ought to be uplifted by the Divine favour that has -come to us, you would turn away that poor child who lies bleeding at our -feet, another victim of war’s cruelty. Was it not war that struck her -down? This war which has been declared against souls as well as bodies! -This war on women, as well as on fighting-men who had less need of -courage than some of us! What did our Lord say to a woman who was taken -by the mob? ‘He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first -stone!’ It was Mary Magdalen who kissed His feet, and wiped them with -her hair. This girl has lost her hair, but perhaps Christ has taken it -as a precious napkin for His wounds. We who have been lucky in escape -from evil--shall we cast her out of the house which has a cross above -its roof? I have been lucky above most women in Lille. If all things -were known, I might be lying there in that girl’s place, bleeding and -senseless, without this hair of mine. Reverend Mother--_remember Franz -von Kreuzenach!_” - -We--Dr. Small, Brand, and I--were dumbfounded by Eileen O’Connor’s -passionate outcry. She was utterly unconscious of us and looked only at -the Reverend Mother, with a light in her eyes that was more intensely -spiritual than I had seen before in any woman’s face. - -The old nun seemed stricken by Eileen’s words. Into her rugged old face, -all wrinkled about the eyes, crept an expression of remorse and shame. -Once she raised her hands, slowly, as though beseeching the girl to -spare her. Then her hands came down again and clasped each other at her -breast, and her head bowed so that her chin was dug into her white bib. -Tears came into her eyes and fell unheeded down her withered cheeks. -I can see now the picture of us all standing there in the whitewashed -corridor of the convent, in the dim light of a hanging lantern--we three -officers standing together, the huddled figure of Marthe Nesle lying -at our feet, half covered with my trench-coat, but with her face lying -sideways, white as death under her cropped red hair, and her bare -shoulders stained with a streak of blood; opposite, the old Mother, with -bowed head and clasped hands; the two young nuns, rigid, motionless, -silent; and Eileen O’Connor, with that queer light on her face and her -hands stretched out with a gesture of passionate appeal. - -The Reverend Mother raised her head and spoke--after what seemed like a -long silence, but was only a second or two, I suppose. - -“My child, I am an old woman, and have said many prayers. But you have -taught me the lesson, which I thought I knew, that the devil does not -depart from us until our souls have found eternal peace. I am a wicked -old woman, and until you opened my eyes I was forgetful of charity and -of our Lord’s most sweet commands.” - -She turned to us now with an air of wonderful dignity and graciousness. - -“Gentlemen, I pray you to carry this wounded girl to my own cell. -To-night I will sleep on bare boards.” - -One of the young nuns was weeping bitterly. - -So we lifted up Marthe Nesle, and, following the Reverend Mother, -carried her to a little white room and laid her on an iron bedstead -under a picture of the Madonna below which burned an oil lamp on a -wooden table. The American doctor asked Eileen O’Connor to bring him -some hot water. - -Brand and I went back in the car, and I dined at his mess again. - - - - -XIV - - -Colonel Lavington was discussing the art of the sonnet and the -influence of Italian culture in Elizabethan England. From that subject -he travelled to the psychology of courage, which in his opinion, for the -moment, was founded on vanity. - -“Courage,” he said, with that gallant look of his which I had seen with -admiration when he walked up the old duckboards beyond Ypres, with -a whimsical smile at “crumps” bursting abominably near--he had done -bravely in the old days as a battalion commander. “Courage is merely a -pose before the mirror of one’s own soul and one’s neighbours. We are -all horribly afraid in moments of danger, but some of us have the -gift of pretending that we don’t mind. That is vanity. We like to look -heroes, even to ourselves. It is good to die with a _beau geste_, though -death is damnably unpleasant.” - -“I agree, colonel,” said Charles Fortune. “Always the right face for the -proper occasion. But it wants a lot of practice.” - -He put on his gallant, devil-may-care face, and there was appreciative -laughter from his fellow officers. - -Harding, the young landowner, was of opinion that courage depended -entirely on the liver. - -“It is a matter of physical health,” he said. “If I am out-of-sorts, -my _moral_ goes down to zero. Not that I’m ever really brave. Anyhow, I -hate things that go off. Those loud noises of bursting shells are very -objectionable. I shall protest against Christmas crackers after the -war.” - -Young Clatworthy was in the sulks, and sat very silent during all this -badinage. - -“What’s the matter?” I asked, and he confided to me his conviction, -while he passed the salt, that “life was a rummy game.” - -“Hipped?” I said, and his answer was, “Fed up to the back teeth!” - -That seemed to me curious, after the glimpse I had had of him with a -little lady of Lille. The boy explained himself somewhat under cover of -the colonel’s conversation, which was holding the interest of the mess. - -“We’re living unnaturally,” he said. “It’s all an abnormal show, and we -pretend to be natural and normal when everything that happens round us -is fantastic and disorderly.” - -“What’s your idea?” I enquired. It was the first time I had heard the -boy talk seriously, or with any touch of gravity. - -“Hard to explain,” he said. “But, take my case to-day. This morning I -went up the line to interrogate the latest batch of P.O.W.’s.” (He meant -prisoners of war.) “A five-point-nine burst within ten yards of my car, -the other side of Courtrai, killed my driver and missed me by a couple -of inches. I felt as sick as a dog when I saw Saunders crumpled over his -steering-wheel with blood pouring down his neck. Not that it’s the first -time I’ve seen blood!” - -He laughed as he gave a glance at his wound-stripe, and I remembered -the way in which he had gained his M.C. at Gommecourt--one of three left -alive in his company. - -“We had been talking, three minutes before, about his next leave. He had -been married in ‘16, after the Somme, and hadn’t seen his wife since. -Said her letters made him ‘uneasy.’ Thought she was drinking because of -the loneliness. Well, there he was--finished--and a nasty sight. I went -off to the P.O.W. cage and examined the beggars--one of them, as -usual, had been a waiter at the ‘Cecil,’ and said, ‘How’s dear old -London?’--and passed the time of day with Bob Mellett--you know, the -one-armed lad. He laughed no end when he heard of my narrow squeak. So -did I--though it’s hard to see the joke. He lent me his car on the way -back, and somewhere outside Courtrai we bumped over a dead body with a -queer soft squelch. It was a German--a young ‘un--and Bob Mellett said, -‘_He_ won’t be home for Christmas!’ Do you know Bob?--he used to cry at -school when a rat was caught. Queer, isn’t it? Now here I am, sitting at -a white table-cloth, listening to the colonel’s talk, and pretending -to be interested. I’m not a bit, really. I’m wondering why that bit of -shell hit Saunders and not me. Or why I’m not lying in a muddy road as a -bit of soft squelch for staff cars to bump over. And on top of that I’m -wondering how it will feel to hang up a bowler hat again in a house -at Wimbledon, and say, ‘Cheerio, mother!’ to the mater (who will be -knitting in the same armchair--chintz-covered--by the piano) and read -the evening paper until dinner’s ready, take Ethel to a local dance, and -get back into the old rut of home life in a nice family, don’t you know? -With all my memories! With the ghosts of _this_ life crowding up! Ugly -ghosts, some of ‘em! Dirty ghosts!... It’s inconceivable that we can -ever go back to the funny old humdrum! I’m not sure that I want to.” - -“You’re hipped,” I told him. “You’ll be glad to get back all right. -Wimbledon will be Paradise after what you’ve been through.” - -“Oh, Lord, _I’ve_ done nothing,” said the boy. “Fact is, I’ve been -talking tripe. Forget it.” - -But I did not forget, and remembered every word later, when I heard his -laughter on Armistice night. - -A despatch-rider stood outside the door in his muddy overalls and Brand -went to get his message. It was from Pierre Nesle. - -“I am mad with joy that you have found Marthe! Alas! I cannot get back -for a week. Tell her that I am still her devoted comrade and loving -brother.--Pierre.” Brand handed me the slip and said, “Poor devil!” I -went back to my billet in Madame Chéri’s house, and she made no allusion -to our conversation in the afternoon, but was anxious, I thought, to -assure me of her friendship by special little courtesies, as when she -lighted my candle and carried it upstairs before saying good-night. -Hélène was learning English fast and furiously, and with her arm round -her mother’s waist said, “Sleep well, sir, and very good dreams to you!” - which I imagine was a sentence out of her text-book. - - - - -XV - - -They were great days--in the last two weeks before the Armistice! For -me, and for many men, they were days of exultation, wild adventure, -pity, immense hope, tremendous scenes uplifted by a sense of victory; -though for others, the soldiers who did the dirty work, brought up lorry -columns through the mud of the old battlefields far behind our new front -line, carried on still with the hard old drudgery of war, they were days -not marked out by any special jubilation, or variety, or hope, but -just like all the others that had gone before since first they came to -France. - -I remember little scenes and pictures of those last two weeks as they -pass through my mind like a him drama; episodes of tragedy or triumph -which startled my imagination, a pageantry of men who had victory -in their eyes, single figures who spoke to me, told me unforgettable -things, and the last dead bodies who fell at the very gate of peace. - -One of the last dead bodies I saw in the war was in the city of -Valenciennes, which we entered on the morning of November 3rd. Our guns -had spared the city which was full of people, but the railway station -was an elaborate ruin of twisted iron and broken glass. Rails were torn -up and sleepers burnt. Our airmen, flying low day after day during the -German retreat, had flung down bombs, which had torn the fronts off the -booking-offices and made match-wood of the signal-boxes and sheds. For -German soldiers detraining here it had been a hellish place, and the -fire of our flying-men had been deadly accurate. I walked through the -ruin out into the station square. It was empty of all life, but one -human figure was there all alone. It was the dead body of a young German -soldier, lying with outstretched arms, on his back, in a pool of blood. -His figure formed a cross there on the cobblestones, and seemed to me -a symbol of all that youth which had been sacrificed by powers of -monstrous evil. His face was still handsome in death, the square, -rough-hewn face of a young peasant. - -There was the tap-tap-tap of a German machine-gun somewhere on the -right of the square. As I walked forward all my senses were alert to the -menace of death. It would be foolish, I thought, to be killed at the end -of the war--for surely the end was very near? And then I had a sudden -sharp thought that perhaps it would be well if this happened. Why should -I live when so many had died? The awful job was done, and my small part -in it. I had seen it through from start to finish, for it was finished -but for a few days of waiting. It might be better to end with it, for -all that came afterwards would be anticlimax. I remember raising my -head and looking squarely round at that staccato hammering of the German -machine-gun, with an intense desire that a bullet might come my way. But -I went on untouched into the town.... As in Courtrai, a fury of gun-fire -overhead kept the people in their houses. Our field batteries were -firing over the city and the enemy was answering. Here and there I saw -a face peering out of a broken window, and then a door opened, and a man -and woman appeared behind it with two thin children. The woman thrust -out a skinny hand and grasped mine, and began to weep. She talked -passionately, with a strange mingling of rage and grief. - -“Oh, my God!” she said, “those devils have gone at last! What have they -not made us suffer! My husband and I had four little houses--we were -innkeepers--and last night they sent us to this part of the town and -burnt all of them.” She used a queer word in French. “Last night,” she -said, “they made a devil’s _charivari_ and set many houses on fire.” - -Her husband spoke to me over his wife’s shoulder. - -“Sir, they have stolen everything, broken everything, ground us down for -four years. They are bandits and robbers.” - -“We are hungry,” said the thin girl. - -By her side the boy, with a white pinched face, echoed her plaint. - -“We have eaten our bread and I am hungry.” - -They had some coffee left, and asked me to go inside and drink it with -them, but I could not wait. - -The woman held my wrist tight in her skinny hands. - -“You will come back?” she asked. - -“I will try,” I said. - -Then she wept again and said: “We are grateful to the English soldiers. -It is they who saved us.” - -That is one out of a hundred little scenes that I remember in those last -two weeks when, not without hard fighting, for the German machine-gun -rearguards fought bravely to the end, our troops entered many towns and -villages, and liberated many thousands of poor people. I remember the -girls of a little town called Bohain who put on their best frocks and -clean pinafores to welcome us. It was not until a little while that we -found they were starving and had not even a crust of bread in all -the town. Then the enemy started shelling, and some of the girls were -killed, and many were suffocated by gas shells. That was worse in St. -Amand, by Valenciennes, where all the women and children took refuge in -the cellars. The German batteries opened fire with yellow cross shell as -our guns passed through. Some of our men, and many of their horses, lay -dead in the streets as I passed through; but worse things happened in -the cellars below the houses. The heavy gas of the yellow cross shells -filtered down to where the women and their babies cowered on their -mattresses. They began to choke and gasp, and babies died in the arms of -dying mothers.... Dr. Small, our American, went with a body of English -doctors and nurses to the rescue of St. Amand. “I’ve seen bad things,” - he told me. “I am not weak in the stomach--but I saw things in those -cellars which nearly made me vomit.” - -He put a hand on my shoulder and blinked at me through his glasses. - -“It’s no good cursing the Germans. As soon as your troops entered the -village they had a right to shell. That’s war. We should do the same. -War’s war. I’ve been cursing the Germans in elaborate and eccentric -language. It did me good. I feel all the better for it. But all the same -I was wrong. It’s war we ought to curse. War which makes these things -possible among civilised peoples. It’s just devilry. Civilised people -must give up the habit. They must get cured of it. You have heard of -typhoid-carriers? They are people infected with the typhoid microbe who -spread the disease. When peace comes we must hunt down the war-carriers, -isolate them, and, if necessary, kill them.” - -He waved his hand to me and went off in an ambulance filled with -suffocated women. - -I met Brand in Valenciennes five days after our liberation of the city, -when our troops were making their formal entry with band and banners. -He came up to me and said, “Have you heard the news?” I saw by his face -that it was good news, and I felt my heart give a lurch when I answered -him. - -“Tell me the best.” - -“Germany is sending plenipotentiaries, under a white flag, to Foch. They -know it is unconditional surrender.... And the Kaiser has abdicated.” - -I drew a deep breath. Something seemed to lift from my soul. The sky -seemed to become brighter, as though a shadow had passed from the face -of the sun. - -“Then it’s the end?... The last battle has been fought!” - -Brand was staring at a column of troops--all young fellows of the 4th -Division. His eyes were glistening, with moisture in them. - -“Reprieved!” he said. “The last of our youth is saved!” - -He turned to me suddenly, and spoke in the deepest melancholy. - -“You and I ought to be dead. So many kids were killed. We’ve no right to -be alive.” - -“Perhaps there is other work to do,” I answered him, weakly, because I -had the same thought. - -He did not seem sure of that. - -“I wonder!... If we could help to save the next generation.” - -In the Place d’Armes of Valenciennes there was a great crowd, and many -of our generals and staff officers on the steps and below the steps of -the Hôtel de Ville. Brand and I caught a glimpse of Colonel Lavington, -looking very gallant and debonair, as usual. Beside him was Charles -Fortune, with his air of a staff officer dreadfully overworked in the -arrangement of victory, modest in spite of his great achievements, -deprecating any public homage that might be paid him. This careful mask -of his was slightly disarranged for a moment when he winked at me under -the very nose of the great general whom he had set to music--“Blear-eyed -Bill, the Butcher of the Boche,” who stood magnificent with his great -chest emblazoned with ribbons. The Prince of Wales was there, shifting -from one leg to another, chatting gaily with a group of staff officers. -A bevy of French girls advanced with enormous bouquets and presented -them to the Prince and his fellow officers. The Prince laughed and -blushed like a schoolboy, sniffed at the flowers, did not know what -to do with them. The other officers held the bouquets with equal -embarrassment, with that strange English shyness which not even war -could cure. - -Some officers close to me were talking of the German plea for armistice. - -“It’s abject surrender!” said one of them. - -“The end!” said another, very solemnly. “Thank God!” - -“The end of a dirty business!” said a young machine-gun officer. I -noticed that he had three wound-stripes. - -One of them, holding a big bouquet, began to dance, pointing his toes, -cutting abbreviated capers in a small space among his comrades. - -“Not too quick for me, old dears! Back to peace again!... Back to life! -Hooray!” - -The colours of many flags fluttered upon the gables of the Place -d’Armes, and the balconies were draped with the Tricolour, the Union -Jack, and the Stars and Stripes. Old citizens wore tall hats saved up -for this day, and girls had taken their lace from hiding-places where -the Germans had not found it, and wore it round their necks and wrists -for the honour of this day. Old women in black bonnets sat in the centre -of window-places and clapped their hands--their wrinkled, hard-working -old hands--to every British soldier who passed, and thousands were -passing. Nobody heard a word of the speeches spoken from the Town Hall -steps, the tribute of the councillors of Valenciennes to the glory of -the troops who had rescued their people from servitude under a ruthless -enemy, nor the answer of Sir Henry Home, the Army Commander, expressing -the pride of his soldiers in the rescue of that fair old city, and their -admiration for the courage of its people. Every word was overwhelmed by -cheering. Then the pipers of a Highland Division, whose fighting I had -recorded through their years of heroic endurance, played a march tune, -and the music of those pipes was loud in the square of Valenciennes and -in the hearts of its people. The troops marched past, and thousands of -bayonets shone above their steel helmets.... - - - - -XVI - - -I was in Mons on the day of Armistice, and on the roads outside when -I heard the news that the Germans had surrendered to all our terms, -and that the “Cease fire” would sound at eleven o’clock. It was a misty -morning, with sunlight glinting through the mist and sparkling in -the coppery leaves of autumn trees. There was no heavy bombardment in -progress round Mons--only now and then the sullen bark of a gun. The -roads were crowded with the usual transport of war--endless columns of -motor-lorries and horse-wagons, and mule-teams, crawling slowly forward, -and infantry battalions trudging alongside with their heavy packs. I -stared into the faces of the marching men, expecting to see joy in their -eyes, wondering why they were not singing--because to-day the guns would -be silent and the fighting finished. Their packs weighed heavy. The mud -from passing lorries splashed them with great gobs of filth. Under their -steel hats the sweat ran down. They looked dead-beat, and marched in -a grim fine of tired men. But I noticed that the transport wagons were -decorated with small flags, and these bits of fluttering colour were -stuck into the harness of gun horses and mules. From the other way came -another tide of traffic--crowds of civilians, who were middle-aged men -and boys, and here and there women pushing hand-carts, and straining -forward with an eager, homing look. The men and boys were carrying -bundles, too heavy for many of them, so that they were bent under their -burdens. But each one had added the last straw but one to his weight by -fastening a flag to his bundle or his cap. I spoke to some of them, and -they told me that they were the civilians from Lille, Valenciennes, and -other towns, who had been taken away by the Germans for forced labour -behind the lines. Two days ago the Germans had said, “We’ve no more use -for you. Get back to your own people. The war is over.” - -They looked worn and haggard, like men who had been shipwrecked. Some of -the boys were weak and sat down on the roadside with their bundles and -could go no farther. Others trudged on gamely, with crooks which -they had cut from the hedges, and only stopped to cry, “_Vivent les -Anglais!_” as our soldiers passed. I looked into many of their faces, -remembering the photograph of Edouard Chéri which had been given to -me by his mother. Perhaps he was Somewhere in those troops of homing -exiles. But he might have been any one of those lanky boys in ragged -jackets and broken boots, and cloth caps pulled down over the ears. - -Just outside Mons, at one minute to eleven o’clock, there was a little -desultory firing. Then a bugle blew, somewhere in a distant field, one -long note. It was the “Cease fire”! A cheer coming faintly over the -fields followed the bugle-call. Then there was no other sound where I -stood but the scrunching of wheels of gun limbers and transport wagons, -the squelch of mud in which horses and mules trudged, and the hard -breathing of tired men marching by under their packs. So, with a curious -lack of drama, the Great Adventure ended! That bugle had blown the -“Cease fire” of a strife which had filled the world with agony and -massacre; destroyed millions of men; broken millions of lives; ruined -many great cities and thousands of hamlets, and left a long wide belt of -country across Europe where no tree remained alive and all the earth was -ravaged; crowded the world with maimed men, blind men, mad men, diseased -men; flung Empires into anarchy, where hunger killed the children and -women had no milk to feed their babies; and bequeathed to all fighting -nations a heritage of debt beneath which many would stagger and fall. -It was the “Cease fire” of all that reign of death, but sounded very -faintly across the fields of France. - -In Mons Canadian soldiers were being kissed by French girls. Women were -giving them wine in the doorways, and these hard-bitten fellows, tough -as leather, reckless of all risk, plastered with mud which had worn into -their skins and souls, drank the wine and kissed the women, and lurched -laughing down the streets. There would be no strict discipline in Mons -that night. They had had enough of discipline in the dirty days. Let it -go on the night of Armistice! Already at mid-day some of these soldiers -were unable to walk except with an arm round a comrade’s neck, or round -the neck of strong peasant girls who screeched with laughter when they -side-slipped or staggered. They had been through hell, those men. They -had lain in ditches, under frightful fire, among dead men and bleeding -men. Who would grudge them their bit of fun on Armistice night? Who -would expect saintship of men who had been taught in the school of war, -taught to kill quick lest they be killed, to see the worst horrors of -the battlefield without going weak, to educate themselves out of the -refinements of peaceful life where Christian virtues are easy and not -meant for war? - - -“Come here, lassie. None of your French tricks for me. I’m -Canadian-born. It’s a kiss or a clout from me.” - -The man grabbed the girl by the arm and drew her into a barn. - -On the night of Armistice in Mons, where, at the beginning of the war, -the Old Contemptibles had first withstood the shock of German arms (I -saw their ghosts there in the market place), there would be the devil -to pay--the devil of war, who plays on the passions of men, and sets his -trap for women’s souls. But I went away from Mons before nightfall, and -travelled back to Lille, in the little old car which had gone to many -strange places with me. - -How quiet it was in the open countryside when darkness fell! The guns -were quiet at last, after four years and more of labour. There were -no fires in the sky, no ruddy glow of death. I listened to the silence -which followed the going down of the sun, and heard the rustling of the -russet leaves and the little sounds of night in peace, and it seemed as -though God gave a benediction to the wounded soul of the world. ‘Other -sounds rose from the towns and fields in the deepening shadow-world of -the day of Armistice. They were sounds of human joy. Men were singing -somewhere on the roads, and their voices rang out gladly. Bugles were -playing. In villages from which the enemy had gone out that morning -round about Mons crowds of figures surged in the narrow streets, and -English laughter rose above the chatter of women and children. - - - - -XVII - - -When I came into Lille rockets were rising above the city. English -soldiers were firing off Verey lights. Above the houses of the city in -darkness rose also gusts of cheering. It is strange that when I heard -them I felt like weeping. They sounded rather ghostly, like the voices -of all the dead who had fallen before this night of Armistice. - -I went to my billet at Madame Chéri’s house, from which I had been -absent some days. I had the key of the front door now and let myself -into the hall. The diningroom door was open, and I heard the voices -of the little French family, laughing, crying, hysterical. Surely -hysterical! - -“_O mon Dieu! O mon petit Toto! Comme tu es grandi! Comme tu es -maigre!_” - -I stood outside the door, understanding the thing that had happened. - -In the centre of the room stood a tall, gaunt boy in ragged clothes, in -the embrace of Madame Chéri, and with one hand clutched by Hélène and -the other by the little Madeleine, her sister. It was Edouard who had -come back. - -He had unloosed a pack from his shoulder, and it lay on the carpet -beside him, with a little flag on a broken stick. He was haggard, with -high cheek-bones prominent through his white, tightly-drawn skin, and -his eyes were sunk in deep sockets. His hair was in a wild mop of black, -disordered locks. He stood there, with tears streaming from his eyes, -and the only words he said were: - -“_Maman! O maman! maman!_” - -I went quietly upstairs and changed my clothes, which were all -muddy. Presently there was a tap at my door and Hélène stood there, -transfigured with joy. She spoke in French. - -“Edouard has come back--my brother! He travelled on an English lorry.” - -“Thank God for that,” I said. “What gladness for you all!” - -“He has grown tall,” said Hélène. She mopped her eyes and laughed and -cried at the same time. “Tall as a giant, but oh! so thin! They starved -him all the time. He fed only on cabbages. They put him to work digging -trenches behind the line--under fire. The brutes! The devils!” - -Her eyes were lit up by passion at the thought of this cruelty and her -brother’s suffering. Then her expression changed to a look of pride. - -“He says he is glad to have been under fire--like father. He hated it, -though, at the time, and said he was frightened! I can’t believe that. -Edouard was always brave.” - -“There’s no courage that takes away the fear of shellfire--as far as I’m -concerned,” I told her, but she only laughed and said, “You men make a -pose of being afraid.” - -She spoke of Edouard again, hugging the “thought of his return. - -“If only he were not so thin and so tired! I find him changed. The poor -boy cries at the sight of _maman_--like a baby.” - -“I don’t wonder,” I said. “I should feel like that if I had been a -prisoner of war and was now home again.” - -Madame Chéri’s voice called from downstairs: “Hélène! _Où es-tu? Edouard -veut te voir!_” - -“Edouard wants me,” said Hélène. - -She seemed rejoiced at the thought that Edouard had missed her, even -for this minute. She took my hand and kissed it, as though wishing me to -share her joy and to be part of it, and then ran downstairs. - - - - -XVIII - - -I went out to the officers’ club which had been established in Lille, -and found Brand there, and Fortune, and young Clatworthy, who made a -place for me at their table. - -Two large rooms which had been the dining and drawingrooms of a private -mansion were crowded with officers, mostly English, but with here and -there a few Americans and French, seated at small tables, waited on by -the girls we called Waacs (of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps). Two -old-fashioned candelabra of cut-glass gave light to each room, and I -remember that the walls were panelled with wood painted a greyish-white -below a moulding of fruit and flowers. Above the table where my friends -sat was the portrait of a French lady of the eighteenth century, in an -oval frame of tarnished gilt. - -I was late for the meal on Armistice night, and many bottles of -champagne had already been opened and drunk. The atmosphere reeked with -the smell of food, the fumes of wine and cigarette smoke, and there was -the noise of many men talking and laughing. I looked about the tables -and saw familiar faces. There were a good many cavalry officers in the -room where I sat, and among them officers of the Guards and the Tank -Corps, aviators, machine-gunners, staff officers of infantry divisions, -French interpreters, American _liaison_ officers, A.P.M.’s, town -majors, and others. The lid was off at last. All these men were -intoxicated with the thought of the victory we had won--complete, -annihilating--and of this Armistice which had ended the war and made -them sure of life. Some of them were a little drunk with wine, but not -enough at this hour to spoil their sense of joy. - -Officers rose at various tables to make speeches, cheered by their own -groups, who laughed and shouted and did not listen. - -“The good old British Army has done the trick at last----” - -“The old Hun is down and out.” - -“Gentlemen, it has been a damned tough job----” - -Another group had burst into song: - -“_Here’s to good old beer, put it down, put it down!_” - -“The cavalry came into its own in the last lap. We’ve fought mounted and -fought dismounted. We’ve rounded up innumerable Huns. We’ve ridden down -machine-guns----” - -Another group was singing independently: - - “There’s a long, long trail a-winding, - - To the land of my dreams.” - -A toast was being pledged at the next table by a Tank officer, who -stood on a chair with a glass of champagne-raised high above his head: -“Gentlemen, I give you the toast of the Tank Corps. This war was won by -the Tanks----” - -“Pull him down!” shouted two lads at the same table. “Tanks be damned! -It was the poor old bloody infantry all the time.” - -One of them pulled down the little Tank officer with a crash and stood -on his own chair. - -“Here’s to the foot-sloggers--the infantry battalions, Tommy Atkins and -his company officer, who did all the dirty work and got none of the -reward, and did most of the dying.” - -A cavalry officer with a monocle immovably screwed in his right eye -demanded the attention of the company, and failed to get it. - -“We all know what we have done ourselves, and what we failed to do. I -give you the toast of our noble Allies, without whom there would be no -Armistice to-night. I drink to the glory of France----” - -The words were heard at several tables, and for once there was a general -acknowledgment of the toast. - -“_Vive la France!_” - -The shout thundered out from all the tables, so that the candelabra -rattled. Five French interpreters in various parts of the room rose to -respond. - -There were shouts of “The Stars and Stripes--Good old Yanks--Well done, -the U.S.A.!” and I was sorry Dr. Small was still at Valenciennes. I -should like him to have heard those shouts. An American staff officer -was on his feet, raising his glass to “England.” - -Charles Fortune stood up at my table. He reminded me exceedingly at -that moment of old prints portraying George IV. in his youth--“the First -Gentleman of Europe”--slightly flushed, with an air of noble dignity and -a roguish eye. - -“Go to it, Fortune,” said Brand. “Nobody’s listening, so you can say -what you like.” - -“Gentlemen,” said Fortune, “I venture to propose the health of our late -enemy, the Germans.” - -Young Clatworthy gave an hysterical guffaw. - -“We owe them a very great debt,” said Fortune. - -“But for their simplicity of nature and amiability of character the -British Empire--that glorious conglomeration of races upon which the sun -utterly declines to set--would have fallen into decay and debility as -a second-class Power. Before the war the German Empire was gaining our -trade, capturing all the markets of the world, waiting at table in all -the best hotels, and providing all the music in the _cafés-chantants_ -of the universe.... With that immense unselfishness so characteristic -of their race, the Germans threw away these advantages and sacrificed -themselves for the benefit of the British. By declaring war they enabled -all the ancient virtues of our race to be revived. Generals sprang up -in every direction--especially in Whitehall, Boulogne and Rouen. Staff -officers multiplied exceedingly. British indigestion--the curse of our -race--became subject to a Sam Brown belt. Business men, mostly bankrupt, -were enriched enormously. Clergymen thundered joyfully from their -pulpits and went back to the Old Testament for that fine old law, -‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’ Elderly virgins married the -youngest subalterns. The youngest flapper caught the eldest and wiliest -of bachelors. Our people were revivified, gentlemen--revivified-” - -“Go easy,” growled Brand. “This is not a night for irony.” - -“Even I,” said Charles Fortune, with a sob of pride in his voice, -“even I, a simple piano-tuner, a man of music, a child of peace and -melody--Shut up, Brand!--became every inch a soldier!” - -He drew himself up in a heroic pose and, raising his glass, cried out: -“Here’s to our late enemy--poor old Fritz!” - -A number of glasses were raised amidst a roar of laughter. - -“Here’s to Fritz--and may the Kaiser roast at Christmas!” - -“And they say we haven’t a sense of humour,” said Charles Fortune -modestly, and opened a new bottle of champagne. - -Brand had a sense of humour, and had laughed dining Fortune’s oration, -knowing that beneath its mockery there was no malice. But I noticed that -he had no spontaneous gaiety on this night of Armistice and sat rather -silent, with a far-away look in his eyes and that hag-ridden melancholy -of his. - -Young Clatworthy was between me and Brand, drinking too heavily, I -thought. Brand thought so too, and gave him a word of caution. - -“That champagne is pretty bad. I’d ‘ware headaches, if I were you, -young’un.” - -“It’s good enough,” said Clatworthy. “Anything to put me in the right -spirit.” - -There was an unnatural glitter in his eyes, and he laughed too easily -at any joke of Fortune’s. Presently he turned his attention to me, and -began talking excitedly in a low monologue. - -“Funny to think it’s the last night! Can you believe it? It seems a -lifetime since I came out in ‘14. I remember the first night, when I -was sent up to Ypres to take the place of a subaltern who’d been knocked -out. It was Christmas Eve, and my battalion was up in the line round -Hooge. I detrained at Vlamertinghe. ‘Can any one tell me the way to -Hooge?’ I asked one of the traffic men, just like a country cousin at -Piccadilly Circus. He looked at me in a queer way, and said, ‘It’s the -same way to hell, sir. Straight on until you get to Ypres, then out of -the Menin Gate and along the road to Hell-fire Corner. After that you -trust to luck. Some young gentlemen never get no further.’ I damned -his impertinence and went on, till I came to the Grande Place in Ypres, -where I just missed an eight-inch shell. It knocked out a gun-team. -Shocking mess it made. ‘The same way to hell,’ I kept saying, until I -fell into a shell-hole along the Menin Road. But, d’you know, the fellow -was wrong, after all.” - -“How?” I asked. - -Young Clatworthy drank up his wine and laughed, as though very much -amused. - -“Why, _that_ wasn’t the way to hell. It was the other way.” - -I was puzzled at his meaning and wondered if he were really drunk. - -“What other way?” - -“Behind the lines--in the back areas. I should have been all right if I -had stuck in the trenches. It was in places like Amiens that I went to -the devil.” - -“Not as bad as that,” I said. - -“Mind you,” he continued, lighting a cigarette and smiling at the -flame, “I’ve had pleasant times in this war, between the bad ones, and, -afterwards, in this cushy job. Extraordinarily amusing and agreeable -along the way to hell. There was little Maiguérite in Amiens--such a -kid! Funny as a kitten! She loved me not wisely, but too well. I had -just come down from the Somme battles then. That little idyll with -Marguérite was like a dream. We two were Babes in the Wood. We plucked -the flowers of life and didn’t listen to the howling of the wolves -beyond the forest.” - -He jerked his head up and listened, and repeated the words: - -“The howling of the wolves!” - -Somebody was singing “John Peel”: - - “D’ye ken John Peel with his coat so gay. - - D’ye ken John Peel at the break of day, - - D’ye ken John Peel when he’s far, far away. - - With, his horn, and his hounds in. the morning?” - -Cyril Clatworthy was on his feet, joining in the chorus with a loud -joyous voice. - - “We’ll follow John Peel through fair and through foul. - - If we want a good hunt in the morning!’’ - -“Bravo! Bravo!” - -He laughed as he sat down. - -“I used to sing that when I was captain of the school,” he said. “A long -time ago, eh? How many centuries?... I was as clean a fellow as you’d -meet in those days. Keen as mustard on cricket. Some bat, too! That was -before the dirty war, and the stinking trenches, and fever, and lice, -and dead bodies, and all that. But I was telling you about Yvonne, -wasn’t I?” - -“Marguérite,” I reminded him. - -“No. Yvonne. I met her at Cassel. A brown-eyed thing. Demure. You know -the type?... One of the worst little sluts I ever met. Oh, a wicked -little witch... Well, I paid for that affair. That policeman was wrong.” - -“What policeman?” I asked. - -“The traffic man at Vlamertinghe. ‘It’s the same way to hell,’ he said, -meaning Hooge. It was the other way, really. All the same, I’ve had some -good hours. And now it’s Armistice night.... Those fellows are getting -rather blue, aren’t they? It’s the blinking cavalry who used to get in -the way of the infantry, blocking up the roads with their ridiculous -horses and their preposterous, lances. Look here, old man, there’s one -thing I want to know. Tell me, as a wise owl.” - -“What is that?” I asked, laughing at his deference to my wisdom. - -“How are we going to get clean enough for peace?” - -“Clean enough?” - -I could not follow the drift of his question, and he tried to explain -himself. - -“Oh, I don’t mean the soap and water business. But morally, spiritually, -intellectually, and all that? Some of us will want a lot of scrubbing -before we sit down in our nice little Christian families, somewhere at -Wimbledon or Ealing. Somehow I funk peace. It means getting back again -to where one started, and I don’t see how it’s possible.... Good Lord, -what tripe I’ve been talking!” - -He pulled the bow of one of the “Waacs” and undid her apron. - -“_Encore une bouteille de champagne, mademoiselle!_” he said in his best -French, and started singing “La Marseillaise.” Some of the officers were -dancing the fox trot and the bunny hug. - -Brand rose with a smile and a sigh. - -“Armistice night!” he said. “Thank God there’s a crowd of fellows left -to do the dancing.... I can’t help thinking of the others.” - -He touched a glass with his lips to a silent toast, and I saw that -he drank to ghosts. Then he put the glass down and laid his hand on -Clatworthy’s shoulder. - -“Care for a stroll?” he said. “This room is too fuggy.” - -“Not I, old lad,” said the boy. “This is Armistice night--and the end of -the adventure. See it through!” - -Brand shook his head and said he must breathe fresh air. Fortune -was playing a Brahms concerto in the style of a German master on the -table-cloth. - -I followed Brand, and we strolled through the dark streets of Lille and -did not talk. In each of our minds was the stupendous thought that -it was the last night of the war--the end of the adventure, as young -Clatworthy had said. God! It had been a frightful adventure from first -to last--a fiery furnace in which youth had been burnt up like grass. -How much heroism we had seen, how much human agony, ruin, hate, cruelty, -love! There had been comradeship and laughter in queer places and -perilous hours. Comradeship, perhaps that was the best of all: the -unselfish comradeship of men. But what a waste of life! What a lowering -of civilisation! Our heritage--what was it, after victory? Who would -heal the wounds of the world? - -Brand suddenly spoke, after our long tramp in the darkness, past windows -from which came music, and singing, and shouts of laughter. He uttered -only one word, but all his soul was in it. - -“Peace!” - -That night we went to see Eileen O’Connor and to enquire after the girl -Marthe. Next day Pierre Nesle was coming to find his sister. - - - - -XIX - - -Eileen O’Connor had gone back from the convent to the rooms she had -before her trial and imprisonment. I was glad to see her in a setting -less austere than the whitewashed parlour in which she had first -received us. There was something of her character in the sitting-room -where she had lived so long during the war, and where with her girl -friends she had done more dangerous work than studying the elements of -drawing and painting. In that setting, too, she looked at home--“The -Portrait of a Lady,” by Lavery, as I saw her in my mind’s eye, when -she sat in a low armchair by the side of a charcoal stove, with the -lamplight on her face and hair and her dress shadowy. She wore a black -dress of some kind, with a tiny edge of lace about the neck and a string -of coloured beads so long that she twisted it about her fingers in her -lap. The room was small, but cosy in the light of a tall lamp on an iron -stand shaded with red silk. Like all the rooms I had seen in Lille--not -many--this was panelled, with a polished floor, bare except for one -rug. On the walls were a few etchings framed in black--London views -mostly--and some water-colour drawings of girls’ heads, charmingly done, -I thought. They were her own studies of some of her pupils and friends, -and one face especially attracted me because of its delicate and -spiritual beauty. - -“That was my fellow prisoner,” said Eileen O’Connor. “Alice de -Villers-Auxicourt. She died before the trial--happily, because she had -no fear.” - -I noticed one other thing in the room which was pleasant to see--an -upright piano, and upon a stool by its side a pile of old songs which I -turned over one by one as we sat talking. They were English and Irish, -mostly from the seventeenth century onwards, but among them I found -some German songs, and on each cover was written the name of Franz -von Kreuzenach. At the sight of that name I had a foolish sense of -embarrassment and dismay, as though I had discovered a skeleton in the -cupboard, and I slipped them hurriedly between other sheets. - -Eileen was talking to Wickham Brand. She did not notice my confusion. -She was telling him that Marthe, Pierre’s sister, was seriously ill -with something like brain-fever. The girl had regained consciousness at -times, but was delirious, and kept crying out for her mother and Pierre -to save her from some horror that frightened her. The nuns had made -enquiries about her through civilians in Lille. Some of them had heard -of the girl under her stage name--“Marthe de Méricourt.” She had sung -in the _cabarets_ before the war. After the German occupation she had -disappeared for a time. Somebody said she had been half-starved and -was in a desperate state. What could a singing-girl do in an “occupied” - town? She reappeared in a restaurant frequented by German officers and -kept up by a woman of bad character. She sang and danced there for a -miserable wage, and part of her duty was to induce German officers -to drink champagne--the worst brand for the highest price. A horrible -degradation for a decent girl! But starvation, so Eileen said, has -fierce claws. Imagine what agony, what terror, what despair must have -gone before that surrender! To sing and dance before the enemies of your -country! - -“Frightful!” said Brand. “A girl should prefer death.” - -Eileen O’Connor was twisting the coloured beads between her fingers. She -looked up at Wickham Brand with a deep thoughtfulness in her dark eyes. - -“Most men would say that. And all women beyond the war zone, safe and -shielded. But death does not come quickly from half-starvation in a -garret without fire, in clothes that are worn threadbare. It is not the -quick death of the battlefield. It is just a long-drawn misery.... Then -there is loneliness. The loneliness of a woman’s soul. Do you understand -that?” - -Brand nodded gravely. “I understand the loneliness of a man’s soul. I’ve -lived with it.” - -“Worse for a woman,” said Eileen. “That singing-girl was lonely in -Lille. Her family--with that boy Pierre--were on the other side of the -lines. She had no friends here before the Germans came.” - -“You mean that afterwards----” - -Brand checked the end of his sentence and the line of his mouth -hardened. - -“Some of the Germans were kind,” said Eileen. “Oh, let us tell the truth -about that! They were not all devils.” - -“They were our enemies,” said Brand. - -Eileen was silent for another moment, staring down at those queer beads -of hers in her lap, and before she spoke again I think her mind was -going back over many episodes and scenes during the German occupation of -Lille. - -“It was a long time--four years. A tremendous time for hatred to hold -out against civility, kindness, and--human nature.... Human nature is -strong; stronger than frontiers, nations, even patriotism.” - -Eileen O’Connor flung her beads back, rose from the low chair and turned -back her hair with both hands with a kind of impatience. - -“I’ve seen the truth of things, pretty close--almost as close as death.” - -“Yes,” said Brand in a low voice. “You were pretty close to all that.” - -The girl seemed to be anxious to plunge deep into the truth of the -things she had seen. - -“The Germans--here in Lille--were of all kinds. Everything there was in -the war, for them, their emotion, their pride in the first victories, -their doubts, fears, boredom, anguish, brutality, sentiment, found a -dwelling-place in this city behind the battle-front. Some of them--in -the administration--stayed here all the time, billeted in French -families. Others came back from the battlefields, horror-stricken, -trying to get a little brief happiness--forgetfulness. There were lots -of them who pitied the French people and had an immense sympathy with -them. They tried to be friends. Tried hard, by every sort of small -kindness in their billets.” - -“Like Schwarz in Madame Chéri’s house,” said Brand bitterly. It seemed -to me curious that he was adopting a mental attitude of unrelenting -hatred to the Germans, when, as I knew, and as I have told, he had been -of late on the side of toleration. That was how his moods swung when as -yet he had no fixed point of view. - -“Oh, yes, there were many beasts,” said Eileen quickly. - -“But others were different. Beasts or not, they were human. They had -eyes to see and to smile, lips to talk and tempt. It was their human -nature which broke some of our hatred. There were young men among them, -and in Lille girls who could be angry for a time, disdainful longer, -and then friendly. I mean lonely, half-starved girls, weak, miserable -girls--and others not starved enough to lose their passion and need of -love. German boys and French girls--entangled in the net of fate.... God -pity them!” - -Brand said, “I pity them, too.” - -He walked over to the piano and made an abrupt request, as though to -change the subject of conversation. - -“Sing something... something English!” - -Eileen O’Connor sang something Irish first, and I liked her deep voice, -so low and sweet. - - “There’s one that is pure as an angel - - And fair as the flowers of May, - - They call her the gentle maiden - - Wherever she takes her way. - - - Her eyes have the glance of sunlight - - As it brightens the blue sea-wave, - - And more than the deep-sea treasure - - The love of her heart I crave. - - - “Though parted afar from my darling, - - I dream of her everywhere; - - The sound of her voice is about me, - - The spell of her presence there. - - - And whether my prayer be granted, - - Or whether she pass me by, - - The face of that gentle maiden - - Will follow me till I die.” - -Brand was standing by the piano, with the light of the tall lamp on his -face, and I saw that there was a wetness in his eyes before the song was -ended. - -“It is queer to hear that in Lille,” he said. “It’s so long since I -heard a woman sing, and it’s like water to a parched soul.” - -Eileen O’Connor played the last bars again and, as she played, talked -softly. - -“To me, the face of that gentle maiden is a friend’s face. Alice de -Villers-Auxicourt, who died in prison.” - - “And whether my prayer be granted, - - Or whether she pass me by, - - The face of that gentle maiden - - Will follow me till I die.” - -Brand turned over the songs, and suddenly I saw his face flush, and I -knew the reason. He had come to the German songs on which was written -the name of Franz von Kreuzenach. - -He turned them over quickly, but Eileen pulled one out--it was a -Schubert song--and opened its leaves. - -“That was the man who saved my life.” - -She spoke without embarrassment, simply. - -“Yes,” said Brand. “He suppressed the evidence.” - -“Oh, you know?” - -I told her that we had heard part of the tale from the Reverend Mother, -but not all of it. Not the motive, nor what had really happened. - -“But you guessed?” - -“No,” I answered sturdily. - -She laughed, but in a serious way. - -“It is not a hard guess, unless I am older than I feel, and uglier than -the mirror tells me. He was in love with me.” - -Brand and I looked absurdly embarrassed. Of course we _had_ guessed, but -this open confession was startling, and there was something repulsive in -the idea to both of us who had come through the war-zone into Lille, and -had seen the hatred of the people for the German race, and the fate of -Pierre Nesle’s sister. - -Eileen O’Connor told us that part of her story which the Reverend Mother -had left out. It explained the “miracle” that had saved this girl’s -life, though, as the Reverend Mother said, perhaps the grace of God was -in it as well. Who knows? - -Franz von Kreuzenach was one of the intelligence officers whose -headquarters were in that courtyard. After service in the trenches with -an infantry battalion he had been stationed since 1915 at Lille until -almost the end. He had a lieutenant’s rank, but was Baron in private -life, belonging to an old family in Bonn. Not a Prussian, therefore, but -a Rhinelander, and without the Prussian arrogance of manner. Just before -the war he had been at Oxford--Brasenose College--and spoke English -perfectly, and loved England with a strange, deep, unconcealed -sentiment. - -“Loved England?----” exclaimed Brand at this part of Eileen’s tale. - -“Why not?” asked Eileen. “I’m Irish, but I love England, in spite of all -her faults and all my grievances! Who can help loving England that has -lived with her people?” - -This Lieutenant von Kreuzenach was two months in Lille before he spoke -a word with Eileen. She passed him often in the courtyard and always -he saluted her with great deference. She fancied she noticed a kind of -wistfulness in his eyes, as though he would have liked to talk to her. -He had blue eyes, sad sometimes, she noticed, and a clean-cut face, -rather delicate and pale. - -One day she dropped a pile of books in the yard all of a heap as he was -passing, and he said, “Allow me,” and helped to pick them up. One of the -books was “Puck of Pook’s Hill,” by Kipling, and he smiled as he turned -over a page or two. - -“I love that book,” he said in perfect English. “There’s so much of the -spirit of old England in it. History, too. That’s fine about the Roman -wall, where the officers go pig-sticking.” - -Eileen O’Connor asked him if he were half English--perhaps he had -an English mother?--but he shook his head and said he was wholly -German--_echt Deutsch_. - -He hesitated for a moment as though he wanted to continue the -conversation, but then saluted and passed on. - -It was a week or so later when they met again, and it was Eileen -O’Connor who said “Good-morning” and made a remark about the weather. - -He stopped, and answered with a look of pleasure and boyish surprise. - -“It’s jolly to hear you say ‘Good-morning’ in English. Takes me straight -back to Oxford before this atrocious war. Besides----” - -Here he stopped and blushed. - -“Besides what?” asked Eileen. - -“Besides, it’s a long time since I talked to a lady. Among officers one -hears nothing but war-talk--the last battle, the next battle, technical -jargon, ‘shop,’ as the English say. It would be nice to talk about -something else--art, music, poetry, ideas.” - -She chaffed him a little, irresistibly. - -“Oh, but you Germans have the monopoly of all that! Art, music, poetry, -they are all absorbed into your _Kultur_--properly Germanised. As for -ideas--what is not in German philosophy is not an idea.” - -He looked profoundly hurt, said Eileen, “Some Germans are very narrow, -very stupid, like some English perhaps. Not all of us believe that -German _Kultur_ is the only knowledge in the world.” - -“Anyhow,” said Eileen O’Connor, “I’m Irish, so we needn’t argue about -the difference between German and English philosophy.” He spoke as if -quoting from a text-book. - -“The Irish are a very romantic race.” - -That, of course, had to be denied by Eileen, who knew her Bernard Shaw. - -“Don’t you believe it,” she said. “We’re a hard, logical, relentless -people, like all peasant folk of Celtic stock. It’s the English who are -romantic and sentimental, like the Germans.” - -He was amazed at those words (so Eileen told us) and then laughed -heartily in his very boyish way. - -“You are pleased to make fun of me. You are pulling my leg, as we said -at Oxford.” - -So they took to talking for a few minutes in the courtyard when they -met, and Eileen noticed that they met more often than before. She -suspected him of arranging that, and it amused her. By that time she had -a staunch friend in the old Kommandant who believed her to be an enemy -of England and an Irish patriot. She was already playing the dangerous -game under his very nose, or at least within fifty yards of the -blotting-pad over which his nose used to be for many hours of the day in -his office. - -It was utterly necessary to keep him free from any suspicion. His -confidence was her greatest safeguard. It was therefore unwise to refuse -him (an honest, stupid old gentleman) when he asked whether now and -again he might bring one of his officers and enjoy an hour’s music -in her rooms after dinner. He had heard her singing, and it had gone -straight to his heart. There was one of his officers, Lieutenant Baron -Franz von Kreuzenach, who had a charming voice. They might have a little -musical recreation which would be most pleasant and refreshing. - -“Bring your Baron,” said Eileen. “I shall not scandalise my neighbours -when the courtyard is closed.” - -Her girl-friends were scandalised when they heard of these musical -evenings--two or three times a month--until she convinced them that -it was a service to France, and a life insurance for herself and them. -There were times when she had scruples. She was tricking both those -men who sat in her room for an hour or two now and then, so polite, so -stiffly courteous, so moved with sentiment when she sang old Irish songs -and Franz von Kreuzenach sang his German songs. She was a spy, in plain -and terrible language, and they were utterly duped. On more than one -night while they were there an escaped prisoner was in the cellar below, -with a German uniform and cypher message, and all directions for escape -across the lines. Though they seldom talked about the war, yet now and -again by casual remarks they revealed the intentions of the German army -and its _moral_, or lack of _moral_. With the old Kommandant she did not -feel so conscience-stricken. To her he was gentle and charming, but to -others a bully, and there was in his character the ruthlessness of -the Prussian officer on all matters of “duty,” and he hated England -ferociously. - -With Franz von Kreuzenach it was different. He was a humanitarian, and -sensitive to all cruelty in life. He hated, not the English, but the war -with real anguish, as she could see by many words he let fall from time -to time. - -He was, she said, a poet, and could see across the frontiers of hatred -to all suffering humanity, and so revolted against the endless, futile -massacre and the spiritual degradation of civilised peoples. It was -only in a veiled way he could say these things in the presence of his -superior officer, but she understood. She understood another thing as -time went on--nearly eighteen months all told. She saw quite clearly, -as all women must see in such a case, that this young German was in love -with her. - -“He did not speak any word in that way,” said Eileen when she told us -this, frankly, in her straight manner of speech, “but in his eyes, in -the touch of his hand, in the tones of his voice, I knew that he loved -me, and I was very sorry.” - -“It was a bit awkward,” said Brand, speaking with a strained attempt at -being casual. I could see that he was very much moved by that part of -the story, and that there was a conflict in his mind. - -“It made me uneasy and embarrassed,” said Eileen. “I don’t like to be -the cause of any man’s suffering, and he was certainly suffering because -of me. It was a tragic thing for both of us when I was found out at -last.” - -“What happened?” asked Brand. - -The thing that happened was simple--and horrible. When Eileen and her -companions were denounced by the sentry at the Citadel the case was -reported to the Kommandant of the Intelligence Office, who was in charge -of all anti-espionage business in Lille. He was enormously disturbed by -the suspicion directed against Eileen. It seemed to him incredible, at -first, that he could have been duped by her. After that, his anger was -so violent that he became incapable of any personal action. He ordered -Franz von Kreuzenach to arrest Eileen and search her rooms. “If she -resist, shoot her at once,” he thundered out. - -It was at seven o’clock in the evening when Baron Franz von Kreuzenach -appeared at Eileen’s door with two soldiers. He was extremely pale and -agitated. - -Eileen rose from her little table, where she was having an evening meal -of. soup and bread. She knew the moment had come which in imagination -she had seen a thousand times. - -“Come in, Baron!” - -She spoke with an attempt at cheerfulness, but had to hold to the back -of her chair to save herself from falling, and she felt her face become -white. - -He stood for a moment in the room, silently, with the two soldiers -behind him, and when he spoke, it was in a low voice, in English. “It is -my painful duty to arrest you, Miss O’Connor.” - -She pretended to be amazed, incredulous, but it was, as she knew, a -feeble mimicry. - -“Arrest me? Why, that is--ridiculous! On what charge?” - -Franz von Kreuzenach looked at her in a pitiful way. - -“A terrible charge: Espionage and conspiracy against German martial -law... I would rather have died than do this--duty.” - -Eileen told us that he spoke that word “duty” as only a German could--as -that law which for a German officer is above all human things, all -kindly relationships, all escape. She pitied him then more, she said, -than she was afraid for herself, and told him that she was sorry the -duty had fallen to him. He made only one other remark before he took her -away from her rooms. - -“I pray God the evidence will be insufficient.” - -There was a military car waiting outside the courtyard, and he opened -the door for her to get in and sat opposite to her. The two soldiers -sat together next to the driver, squeezed close--they were both stout -men--with their rifles between their knees. It was dark in the streets -of Lille and in the car. Eileen could only see the officer’s face -vaguely and white. He spoke again as they were driven quickly. - -“I have to search your rooms to-night. Have you destroyed your papers?” - -He seemed to have no doubt about her guilt, but she would not admit it. - -“I have no papers of which I am afraid.” - -“That is well,” said Franz von Kreuzenach. - -He told her that the Baronne de Villers-Auxicourt and Marcelle Barbier -had been arrested also, and that news was like a death-blow to the girl. -It showed that their conspiracy had been revealed, and she was stricken -at the thought of the fate awaiting her friends, those young delicate -girls, who had been so brave in taking risks. - -Towards the end of the journey, which was not far, Franz von Kreuzenach -began speaking in a low, emotional voice. - -Whatever happened, he said, he prayed that she might think of him with -friendship, not blaming him for that arrest, which was in obedience to -orders. He would ever be grateful to her for her kindness, and the songs -she had sung. They had been happy evenings to him when he could see -her and listen to her voice. He looked forward to them in a hungry way, -because of his loneliness. - -“He said--other things,” added Eileen, and she did not tell us, though -dimly we guessed at the words of that German officer who loved her. At -the gate of the prison he delivered her to a group of military police, -and then saluted as he swung round on his heel. - -The next time she saw him was at her trial. Once only their eyes -met, and he became deadly pale and bent his head. During her -cross-examination of him he did not look at her, and his embarrassment, -his agony--she could see that he was suffering--made an unfavourable -impression on the court, who thought he was not sure of his evidence and -was making blundering answers when she challenged him. She held him up -to ridicule, but all the time was sorry for him, and grateful to him, -because she knew how much evidence against her he had concealed. - -“He behaved strangely about that evidence,” said Eileen. “What puzzles -me still is why he produced so much and yet kept back the rest. You see, -he put in the papers he had found in the secret passage, and they were -enough to have me shot, yet he hushed up the fact about the passage, -which, of course, was utterly damning. It looked as though he wanted to -give me a sporting chance. But that was not his character, because he -was a simple young man. He could have destroyed the papers as easily -as he kept back the fact about the underground passage, but he produced -them, and I escaped only by the skin of my teeth. Read me that riddle, -Wickham Brand!” - -“It’s easy,” said Brand. “The fellow was pulled two ways. By duty -and--sentiment.” - -“Love,” said Eileen in her candid way. - -“Love, if you like... It was a conflict. Probably his sense of duty (I -know these German officers!) was strong enough to make him hand up -the papers to his superior officers. He couldn’t bring himself to burn -them--the fool! Then the other emotion in him----” - -“Give it a name,” said Eileen, smiling in her whimsical way. - -“That damned love of his,” said Brand, “tugged at him intolerably, -and jabbed at his conscience. So he hid the news about the passage and -thought what a fine fellow he was. Mr. Facing-Both-Ways. Duty and love, -both sacrificed!... He’d have looked pretty sick if you’d been shot, and -it wasn’t to his credit that you weren’t.” - -Eileen O’Connor was amused with Brand’s refusal to credit Franz von -Kreuzenach with any kindness. - -“Admit,” she said, “that his suppression of evidence gave me my chance. -If all were told, I was lost.” - -Brand admitted that. - -“Admit also,” said Eileen, “that he behaved like a gentleman.” - -Brand admitted it grudgingly. - -“A German gentleman.” - -Then he realised his meanness, and made amends. - -“That’s unfair! He behaved like a good fellow. Probably took big risks. -Every one who knows what happened must be grateful to him. If I meet him -I’ll thank him.” - -Eileen O’Connor held Brand to that promise, and asked him for a favour -which made him hesitate. - -“When you go on to the Rhine will you take him a letter from me?” - -“It’s against the rules,” said Brand rather stiffly. - -Eileen pooh-poohed those rules, and said Franz von Kreuzenach had broken -his for her sake. - -“I’ll take it,” said Brand. - -That night when we left Eileen O’Connor’s rooms the Armistice was still -being celebrated by British soldiers. Verey lights were rising above -the houses, fired off by young officers as symbols of their own soaring -spirits. Shadows lurched against us in the dark streets as officers and -men went singing to their billets. Some girls of Lille had linked arms -with British Tommies and were dancing in the darkness with screams of -mirth. In one of the doorways a soldier with his steel hat at the back -of his head and his rifle lying at his feet kept shouting one word in a -drunken way: “Peace!... Peace!” - -Brand had his arm through mine, and when we came to his headquarters he -would not let me go. - -“Armistice night!” he said. “Don’t let’s sleep just yet. Let’s hug the -thought over a glass of whisky. The war is over!... No more blood!... No -more of its tragedy!” - -Yet we had got no farther than the hall before we knew that tragedy had -not ended with the Armistice. - -Colonel Lavington met us and spoke to Brand. - -“A bad thing has happened. Young Clatworthy has shot himself... upstairs -in his room.” - -“No!” - -Brand started back as if he had been hit. He had been fond of -Clatworthy, as he was of all boys, and they had been together for many -months. It was to Brand that Clatworthy wrote his last strange note, and -the colonel gave it to him then in the hall. - -I saw it afterwards, written in a big scrawl--a few lines which now I -copy out:-- - -“_Dear old Brand,--It’s the end of the adventure. Somehow I funk Peace. -I don’t see how I can go back to Wimbledon as if nothing had happened -to me. None of us are the same as when we left, and I’m quite different. -I’m going over to the pals on the other side. They will understand. -Cheerio!_ - -“_Cyril Clatworthy_.” - -“I was playing my flute when I heard the shot,” said the colonel. - -Brand put the letter in his pocket and made only one comment. - -“Another victim of the war-devil.... Poor kid!” - -Presently he went up to young Clatworthy’s room, and stayed there a long -time. - -A few days later we began to move on towards the Rhine by slow stages, -giving the German Army time to get back. In Brand’s pocket-book was the -letter to Franz von Kreuzenach from Eileen O’Connor. - - -END OF BOOK I. - - - - - -BOOK II--THROUGH HOSTILE GATES - - - - -I - - -The advance of the Allied Armies towards the Rhine was by definite, -slow stages, enabling the German Army to withdraw in advance of us with -as much material of war as was left to them by the conditions of the -Armistice. On that retreat of theirs they abandoned so much that it was -clearly impossible for them to resist our demands by fighting again, -however hard might be the peace terms. Their acceptance of the Armistice -drawn up by Marshal Foch with a relentless severity in every clause, so -that the whole document was a sentence of death to the German military -system, proved that they had no more “fight” in them. It was the most -abject and humiliating surrender ever made by a great nation in the -hour of defeat, and an acknowledgment before the whole world that their -armies had broken to bits, in organisation and in spirit. - -On the roads for hundreds of kilometres out from Mons and Le Cateau, -past Brussels and Liège and Namur, was the visible proof of the -disintegration and downfall of what had been the greatest military -machine in the world. Mile after mile and score after score of miles, on -each side of the long straight roads, down which, four years before, the -first German Armies had marched in endless columns after the first brief -check at Liège, with absolute faith in victory, there lay now abandoned -guns, trench mortars, aeroplanes, motor lorries, motor cars and -transport wagons. Those monstrous guns which had pounded so much of our -young flesh to pulp, year after year, were now tossed into the ditches, -or overturned in the wayside fields, with broken breech-blocks or -without their sights. - -It was good to see them there. Field-guns, upturned, thrust their -muzzles into the mud, and Belgian peasant-, boys made cock-shies of -them. I liked to see them at that game. Here also was the spectacle of -a war machine which had worn out until, like the “one-hoss shay,” it had -fallen to pieces. Those motor lorries, motor cars, and transport wagons -were in the last stage of decrepitude, their axles and spokes all rusty, -their woodwork cracked, their wheels tied round with bits of iron in -the place of tyres. Everywhere were dead horses worn to skin and bones -before they had fallen. For lack of food and fats and rubber and labour -the German material of war was in a sorry state before the failure of -their man-power in the fighting fields after those years of massacre -brought home to them the awful fact that they had no more strength to -resist our onslaughts. - -One of those who pointed the moral of all this was the little American -doctor, Edward Small, and he found an immense satisfaction in the sight -of those derelict wrecks of the German war-devils. He and I travelled -together for some time, meeting Brand, Harding, and other friends, in -towns like Liège and Namur. I remember him now, standing by a German -howitzer--a colossus--sprawling out of a ditch. He chuckled in a goblin -way, with his little grey beard thrust up by a muffler which he had tied -over his field-cap and under his chin. (It was cold, with a white mist -which clung damply to our faces.) He went so far in his pleasure as -to pick up a big stone (like those Belgian boys) and heave it at the -monster. - -“Fine!” he said. “That devil will never again vomit out death upon men -crouching low in ditches--fifteen miles away. Never again will it smash -through the roofs of farmhouses where people desired to live in peace, -or bash big holes in little old churches where folk worshipped through -the centuries--a loving God!... Sonny, this damned thing is symbolical. -Its overthrow means the downfall of all the machinery of slaughter which -has been accumulated by civilised peoples afraid of each other. In -a little while, if there’s any sense in humanity after this fearful -lesson, we shall put all our guns on to the scrap-heap and start a new -era of reasonable intercourse between the peoples of the world.” - -“Doctor,” I answered, “there’s a mighty big ‘If’ in that long sentence -of yours.” - -He blinked at me with beads of mist on his lashes. - -“Don’t you go wet-blanketing my faith in a step-up for the human race! -During the next few months we’re going to re-arrange life. We are going -to give Fear the knock-out blow.... It was Fear that was the cause of -all this horrible insanity and all this need of sacrifice. Germany was -afraid of being ‘hemmed in’ by England, France and Russia. Fear, more -than the lust of power, was at the back of her big armies. France was -afraid of Germany trampling over her frontiers again. Russian Czardom -was afraid of revolution within her own borders and looked to war as -a safety-valve. England was afraid of the German Navy and afraid of -Germans at Calais and Dunkirk. All the little Powers were afraid of the -big Powers and made their beastly little alliances as a life insurance -against the time when they would be dragged into the dog-fight. -Now, with the German bogey killed--the most formidable and frightful -bogey--Austria disintegrated, Russia groping her way with bloodshot -eyes to a new democracy, a complete set of fears has been removed. The -spirits of the peoples will be uplifted, the darkness of fear having -passed from them. We are coming out into the broad sunlight of sanity, -and mankind will march to better conquests than those of conscript -armies. Thank God, the United States of America (and don’t you forget -it!) will play a part in this advance to another New World.” - -It was absurd to argue with the little man in a sodden field on the road -to Liège. Besides, though I saw weak links in his chain of reasoning, I -did not want to argue. - -I wanted to believe also that our victory would not be a mere vulgar -triumph of the old kind, one military power rising upon the ruins of its -rival, one great yell (or many) of “Yah--we told you so!” but that it -would be a victory for all humanity, shamed by the degradation of its -orgy of blood, in spite of all pride in long-enduring manhood, and that -the peoples of the world, with one common, enormous, generous instinct, -would cry out, “The horror has passed! Never again shall it come upon -us.... Let us pay back to the dead by contriving a better way of life -for those who follow!” The chance of that lay with living youth, if they -would not allow themselves to be betrayed by their old men. That also -was a mighty “If,” but I clung to the hope with as passionate a faith as -that of the little American doctor.... - -The way to the Rhine lay through many cities liberated from hostile -rule, through many wonderful scenes in which, emotion surged like a -white flame above great crowds. There was a pageantry of life which I -had never before seen in war or in peace, and those of us who went that -way became dazed by the endless riot of colour, and our ears were tired -by a tumult of joyous sound. In Brussels, Bruges, Ghent, Liège, Namur, -Venders, banners waved above every house. Flags--flags--flags of many -nations and designs, decorated the house-fronts, were draped on the -balconies, were entwined in the windows, came like flames above the -heads of marching crowds. Everywhere there was the sound of singing -by multitudes, and through those weeks one song was always in the air, -triumphant, exultant, intoxicating, almost maddening in its effect -upon crowds and individuals--the old song of liberty and revolt: “La -Marseillaise.” With it, not so universal, but haunting in constant -refrain between the outbursts of that other tune, they sang “La -Brabançonne” of Belgium and quaint old folk-songs that came to life -again with the spirit of the people. Bells pealed from churches in which -the Germans had left them by special favour. The belfry of Bruges had -not lost its carillon. In Ghent, when the King of the Belgians rode -in along flower-strewn ways, under banners that made one great canopy, -while cheers swept up and around him to his grave, tanned, melancholy -face, unchanged by victory--so I had seen him in his ruined towns among -his dead--I heard the great boom of the cathedral bell. In Brussels, -when he rode in later, there were many bells ringing and clashing, and -wild cheering, which to me, lying in an upper room after a smash on -the Field of Waterloo, seemed uncanny and inhuman, like the murmur of -innumerable ghost-voices. Into these towns, and along the roads through -Belgium to the Meuse, bands were playing and soldiers singing, and -on each man’s rifle was a flag or a flower. In every city there was -carnival. It was the carnival of human joy after long fasting from the -pleasure of life. Soldiers and civilians, men and women, sang together, -linked arms, danced together through many streets, in many towns. In -the darkness of those nights of Armistice one saw the eyes of people -sparkling, laughing, burning; the eyes of girls lit up by inner fires, -eager, roving, alluring, untamed; and the eyes of soldiers, surprised, -amused, adventurous, drunken, ready for any kind of fun; and sometimes -in those crowds, dead eyes, or tortured eyes, staring inwards and not -outwards, because of some remembrance which came like a ghost between -them and carnival. - -In Ghent there were other sounds besides music and laughter, and -illuminations too fierce and ruddy in their glow to give me pleasure. At -night I heard the screams of women. I had no need to ask the meaning of -them. I had heard such screams before, when Pierre Nesle’s sister Marthe -was in the hands of the mob. But one man told me, as though I did not -know. - -“They are cutting off some ladies’ hair. Six of them--the hussies! They -were too friendly with the Germans, you understand? Now they are being -stripped, for shame. There are others, monsieur. Many, many, if one only -knew. Hark at their howling!” - -He laughed heartily, without any touch of pity. I tried to push my way -nearer to try by some word of protest to stop that merry sport with -hunted women. The crowds were too dense, the women too far away. In any -case no word of mine would have had effect. I went into a restaurant and -ordered dinner, though not hungry. Brand was there, sitting alone till -I joined him. The place was filled with French and Belgian officers and -womenfolk. The swing-door opened and another woman came in and sat a few -tables away from ours. She was a tall girl, rather handsome, and better -dressed than the ordinary _bourgeoisie_ of Ghent. At least, so it seemed -to me when she hung up some heavy furs on the peg above her chair. - -A waiter advanced towards her, and then, standing stock-still, began to -shout, with a thrill of fury in his voice. He shouted frightful words in -French, and one sentence which I remember now. - -“A week ago you sat here with a German officer!” - -The Belgian officers were listening gravely. One of them half-rose from -his chair with a flushed, wolfish face. I was staring at the girl. She -was white to the lips, and held on to a brass rail as though about to -faint. Then, controlling herself instantly, she fumbled at the peg, -pulled down her furs and fled through the swing-door... She was another -Marthe. - -Somebody laughed in the restaurant, but only one voice. For a moment -there was silence, then conversation was resumed, as though no figure -of tragedy had passed. The waiter who had denounced the woman swept some -crumbs off a table and went to fetch some soup. - -Brand did not touch his food. - -“I feel sick,” he said. - -He pushed his plate away and paid the bill. - -“Let’s go.” - -He forgot to ask whether I wanted to eat--he was absent-minded in that -way--but I felt like him, and avoiding the Grande Place we walked by -hazard to a part of the city where some fires were burning. The sky was -reddened and we smelt smoke, and presently felt the heat of flames. - -“What new devilry?” asked Brand. “Can’t these people enjoy peace? Hasn’t -there been enough violence?” - -“Possibly a bonfire,” I said, “symbolical of joy and warmth after cold -years!” - -Coming closer, I saw that Brand was right. Black figures like dancing -devils were in the ruddy glare of a savage fire up a side street of -Ghent. In other streets were other fires. Close to where we stood was -an old inn, called the Hotel de la Demie-Lune--the Hotel of the -Half-Moon--and its windows had been heaved out, and inside the rooms -Belgian soldiers and citizens were flinging out tables and chairs and -planks and wainscoting to feed the bonfire below, and every time the -flames licked up to the new fuel there were shouts of joy from the -crowd. - -“What does it mean?” asked Brand, and a man in the crowd told us that -the house had been used as the headquarters of a German organisation for -“Flemish Activists”--or Flamagands, as they were called--whose object -was to divide the Walloons, or French-speaking Belgians, from the -Flemings, in the interests of Germany. - -“It is the people’s revenge for those who have tried to sow seeds of -hatred among-them,” said the man. - -Other people standing by spoke disapprovingly of the scene. - -“The Germans have made too many fires in this war,” said an elderly -man in a black hat with a high crown and broad brim, like a portrait by -Franz Hals. “We don’t want to destroy our own houses now the enemy has -gone. That is madness.” - -“It seems unnecessary!” said Brand. - -As we made our way back we saw the light of other fires, and heard -the noise of smashing glass and a splintering of woodwork. The mob was -sacking shops which had traded notoriously with the Germans. Out of -one alley a man came running like a hunted animal. We heard his breath -panting as he passed. A shout of “Flamagand! Flamagand!” followed him, -and in another second a mob had caught him. We heard his death-cry -before they killed him like a rat. - -Never before in the history of the world had such crowds gathered -together as now in Brussels, Ghent or Liège. French and English soldiers -walked the same streets, khaki and sky-blue mingling. These two races -had met before, not as friends, in some of these towns--five centuries -and more before in history. But here also were men from Canada, -Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the new world which had come -to the old world on this adventure, paying back something to the old -blood and the old ghosts because of their heritage, yet strangely aloof -on the whole from these continental peoples, not understanding them, -despising them. - -The English soldier took it all as it came, with that queer adaptability -of his to any environment or any adventure, with his simple human touch. - -“Better than the old Ypres salient,” said one of them, grinning at me -after a game of kiss-in-the-ring at Venders. He wiped the sweat from his -face and neck, and as he raised his arm I saw by his gold stripes that -he had been three times wounded. Yes, that was better than the old hell. -He roared with laughter when one of his comrades went into the ring with -a buxom girl while the crowd danced round him, holding hands, singing, -laughing, pulling him this side and that. - -The man who had just left the ring spoke to me again in a confidential -way. - -“My wife wouldn’t like it if she’d seen me just then. I shan’t tell ‘er. -She wouldn’t understand. Nobody can understand the things we’ve done, -the things we’ve thought, nor the things we’ve seen, unless they’ve been -through with us... and we don’t understand, neither!” - -“Who does?” I asked, to express agreement with him, but he took my words -as a question to be answered. - -“P’raps Gord knows. If so, ‘E’s a clever One, ‘E is!... I wish I ‘ad -‘alf ‘Is sense.” - -He drifted away from me with a gurgle of laughter at a girl who pushed -his cap on one side. - -Along the kerbstone of the market-place some transport wagons were -halted, and the drivers were cooking their evening meal over a charcoal -stove, as though on one of the roads of war, while a crowd of Belgians -roared with laughter at their by-play with clasp-knives, leaden spoons, -and dixies. One of them was a cockney humorist--his type was always -to be found in any group of English soldiers--and was performing a -pantomime for the edification of the onlookers and his own pleasure. - -A woman standing on the edge of this scene touched me on the sleeve. - -“Are you going forward to the Rhine, _mon lieutenant?_” - -I told her “yes,” and that I should soon be among the Germans. - -She gave a little tug to my sleeve, and spoke in a kind of coaxing -whisper. - -“Be cruel to them, _mon lieutenant!_ Be hard and ruthless. Make them -suffer as we have suffered. Tread on their necks so that they squeal. -_Soyez cruel._” - -Her face and part of her figure were in the glow from the charcoal fire -of the transport men, and I saw that she was a little woman, neatly -dressed, with a thin, gentle, rather worn-looking face. Those words, -“_Soyez cruel!_” gave me a moment’s shock, especially because of the -soft, wheedling tone of her voice. - -“What would you do,” I asked in a laughing way, “if you were in my -place?” - -“I dream at nights of what I would like to do. There are so many things -I would like to do for vengeance. I think all German women should be -killed to stop them breeding. That is one thing.” - -“And the next?” I asked. - -“It would be well to kill all German babies. Perhaps the good God will -do it in His infinite wisdom.” - -“You are religious, madame?” - -“We had only our prayers,” she said, with piety. - -A band of dancing people bore down upon us and swept us apart. From -a high balcony an Italian who had been a prisoner of war sang “La -Marseillaise,” and though these people’s ears had been dinned with it -all day, though their throats were hoarse with singing it, they listened -to it now, again, as though it were a new revelation. The man sang with -passion in his voice, as powerful as a trumpet, more thrilling than -that. The passion of four years’ agony in some foul prison-camp inspired -him now, as he sang that song of liberty and triumph. - - “Allons, Enfants de la patrie! - - Le jour de gloire est arrivé!” - -The crowd took up the song again, and it roared across the square -of Venders until another kind of music met and clashed with it, and -overwhelmed it with brazen notes. It was the town band of Venders, -composed of twenty-five citizens, mostly middle-aged and portly--some -old and scraggy, in long frock-coats and tall pot-hats. Solemnly, with -puffed cheeks, they marched along, parting the waves of people as they -went, as it seemed, by the power of their blasts. They were playing an -old tune called “Madelon”--its refrain comes back to me now with the -picture of that carnival in Venders, with all those faces, all that -human pressure and emotion--and behind them, as though following the -Pied Piper (twenty-five pied pipers!) came dancing at least a thousand -people, eight abreast, with linked arms or linked hands. They were young -Belgian boys and girls, old Belgian men and women, children, British -soldiers, American soldiers, English, Scottish, Irish, Canadian, -Australian, Russian, and Italian ex-prisoners of war just liberated from -their prison-camps, new to liberty. They were all singing that old song -of “Madelon,” and all dancing in a kind of jig. Other crowds, dancing -and singing, came out of side-streets into the wide Grande Place, -mingled, like human waves meeting, swirled in wild, laughing eddies. -Carnival after the long fasting. - -Brand clutched me by the arm and laughed in his deep, hollow voice. - -“Look at that old satyr!... I believe Daddy Small is Pan himself!” - -It was the little American doctor. He was in the centre of a row of -eight in the vanguard of a dancing column. A girl of the _midinette_ -type--pretty, impudent, wild-eyed, with a strand of fair hair blowing -loose from her little fur cap--was clinging to his arm on one side, -while on the other was a stout, middle-aged woman with a cheerful -Flemish face and mirth-filled eyes. Linked up with the others they -jigged behind the town band. Dr. Small’s little grey beard had a -raffish look. His field cap was tilted back from his bony forehead. His -spectacles were askew. He had the happy look of careless boyhood. He -did not see us then, but later in the evening detached himself from the -stout Flemish lady, who kissed him on both cheeks, and made his way to -where Brand and I stood under the portico of a hotel. - -“Fie, doctor!” said Brand. “What would your old patients in New York say -to this Bacchanalian orgy?” - -“Sonny,” said the doctor, “they wouldn’t believe it. It’s incredible!” - -He wiped the perspiration from his brow, threaded his fingers through -his grey beard, and laughed in that shrill way which was his habit when -excited. - -“My word, it was good fun! I became part of a people’s joy. I had their -sense of escape from frightful things. Youth came back to me. Their -songs danced in my blood. In spite of my goggles and my grey beard that -buxom lady adored me as though I were the young Adonis. The little girl -clasped my hand as though I were her younger brother. Time rolled back -from the world. Old age was touched with the divine elixir. In that -crowd there is the springtime of life, when Pan played on his pipes -through pagan woods. I wouldn’t have missed it for a million dollars!” - -That night Brand and I and some others (Charles Fortune among them) were -billeted in a small hotel which had been a German headquarters a few -days before. There was a piano in the billiard room, and Fortune touched -its keys. Several notes were broken but he skipped them deftly and -improvised a musical caricature of “Daddy” Small dancing in the -carnival. He, too, had seen that astonishing vision, and it inspired him -to grotesque fantasies. In his imagination he brought a great general -to Venders--“Blear-eyed Bill, the Butcher of the Boche”--and gave him -a _pas seul_ in the Grande Place, like an elephant gambolling in green -fields and trumpeting his joy. - -Young Harding was moody, and confided to me that he did not like the -idea of crossing the German frontier and going to Cologne. - -“There will be dirty work,” he said, “as sure as fate. The Huns will -begin sniping and then we shall have to start reprisals. Well, if they -ask for it I hope we shall give it them. Without mercy, after all they -have done. At the first sign of treachery I hope the machine-guns will -begin to play. Every time I see a Hun I shall feel like slitting his -throat.” - -“Well, you’ll get into a murderous state of mind,” I answered him. -“We shall see plenty, and live among them. I expect they will be tame -enough.” - -“Some poor devils of ours will be murdered in their beds,” said Harding. -“It makes my blood boil to think of it. I only hope we shan’t stand any -nonsense. I’d like to see Cologne Cathedral go up in flames. That would -be a consolation.” - -Charles Fortune broke away from his musical fantasy of “Blear-eyed -Bill” and played a bar or two of the “Marseillaise” in ragtime. It was -a greeting to Pierre Nesle, who came into the room quietly in his _képi_ -and heavy motor-coat, with a salute to the company. - -“_Bon soir, petit Pierre!_” said Fortune, “_qu’il y a, -done--quoi?--avec ta figure si sombre, si mélancolique, d’une tristesse -pitoyable_----” - -Pierre Nesle inspired him to sing a little old French _chanson_ of -Pierrot disconsolate. - -Pierre had just motored down from Lille--a long journey--and was blue -with cold, as he said, warming his hands at the charcoal stove. -He laughed at Fortune’s jesting, begged a cigarette from Harding, -apologised for keeping on his “stink-coat” for a while until he had -thawed out--and I admired the boy’s pluck and self-control. It was the -first time I had seen him since he had gone to Lille to see his sister. -I knew by the new lines about his eyes and mouth, by a haggard, older -look he had that he had seen that sister of his--Marthe--and knew her -tragedy. - -It was to Brand’s room that he went after midnight, and from Brand, a -day later, I heard what had happened. He had begun by thanking Brand -for that rescue of his sister in Lille, in a most composed and courteous -way. Then suddenly that mask fell from him and he sat down heavily in -a chair, put his head down on his arms upon the table and wept like a -child in uncontrollable grief. Brand was immensely distressed and -could not think of any word to comfort him. He kept saying, “Courage! -Courage!” as I had said to Madame Chéri when she broke down about her -boy Edouard, as the young Baronne had sent word to Eileen from her -prison death-bed, and as so many men and women had said to others who -had been stricken by the cruelties of war. - -“The boy was down and out,” said Brand. “What could I say? It is one of -those miseries for which there is no cure. He began to talk about his -sister when they had been together at home, in Paris before the war. She -had been so gay, so comradely, so full of adventure. Then he began to -curse God for having allowed so much cruelty and men for being such -devils. He cursed the Germans, but then, in most frightful language, -most bitterly of all he cursed the people of Lille for having tortured -a woman who had been starved into weakness, and had sinned to save her -life. He contradicted himself then, violently, and said, ‘It was no sin. -My sister was a loyal girl to France. In her soul she was loyal. So she -swore to me on her crucifix. I would have killed her if she had been -disloyal.’... So there you are! Pierre Nesle is broken on the wheel of -war, like so many others. What’s the cure?” - -“None,” I said, “for his generation. One can’t undo the things that are -done.” - -Brand was pacing up and down his bedroom, where he had been telling me -these things, and now, at my words, he stopped and stared at me before -answering. - -“No. I think you’re right. This generation has been hard hit, and we -shall go about with unhealed wounds. But the next generation?... -Let’s try to save it from all this horror! If the world will only -understand----” - -The next day we left Venders and crossed the German frontier on the way -to the Rhine. - - - - -II - - -Brand and I, who were inseparable now, and young Harding, who had -joined us, crossed the Belgian frontier with our leading troop of -cavalry--the Dragoon Guards--and entered Germany on the morning of -December 4th. For three days our advanced cavalry outposts had been -halted on the frontier line beyond Venders and Spa. The scenery had -become German already--hill-country, with roads winding through fir -forests above deep ravines, where red undergrowth glowed like fire -through the rich green of fir-trees, and where, on the hillsides and in -the valleys, were wooden _châlets_ and villas with pointed turrets like -those in the Black Forest. - -We halted this side of a little stone bridge over the stream which -divides the two countries. A picket of Dragoons was holding the bridge -with double sentries, under orders to let no man pass until the signal -was given to advance. - -“What’s the name of this place?” asked Brand of a young cavalry officer -smoking a cigarette and clapping his hands to keep warm. - -“Rothwasser, sir,” said that child, removing the cigarette from his -lips. He pointed to a small house on rising ground beyond, a white -building with a slate roof, and said: “That’s the first house in -Germany. I don’t suppose they’ll invite us to breakfast.” - -Brand and I leaned over the stone bridge, watching and listening to the -swirl of tawny water over big grey stones. - -“The Red Water,” said Brand. “Not a bad name when one thinks of the -rivers of blood that have flowed between our armies and this place. It’s -been a long journey to this little bridge.” - -We stared across the brook and were enormously stirred (I was, at least) -by the historic meaning of this scene. Over there, a few yards away, -was Germany, the fringe of what had been until some weeks ago the mighty -German Empire. Not a human being appeared on that side of the stone -bridge. There was no German sentry facing ours. The gate into Germany -was open and unguarded. A deep silence was over there by the pine-woods -where the undergrowth was red. I wondered what would happen when we -rode through that silence and that loneliness into the first German -town--Malmédy--and afterwards through many German towns and villages on -the way to the Rhine.... - -Looking back on that adventure, I remember our psychological sensations, -our surprise at the things which happened and failed to happen, the -change of mind which gradually dawned upon some of our officers, the -incredulity, resentment, suspicion, amazement, which overcame many of -them because of the attitude of the German people whom they met for the -first time face to face without arms in their hands. I have already said -that many of our officers had a secret dread of this advance into German -territory, not because they were afraid of danger to their own skins, -but because they had a greater fear of being called upon to do -“dirty work” in the event of civilians sniping and any sign of the -_franc-tireur_. They had been warned by the High Command that that might -happen, and that there must be a ruthless punishment of any such crimes. - -“Our turn for atrocities!” whispered young cavalry officers, remembering -Louvain and Alost, and they hated the idea. We were in the state of -mind which led to some of the black business in Belgium when the Germans -first advanced--nervous, ready to believe any rumour of treacherous -attack, more afraid of civilian hostility than of armed troops. A single -shot fired by some drunken fool in a German village, a single man of -ours killed in a brawl, or murdered by a German out for vengeance, might -lead to most bloody tragedy. Rumour was already whispering of ghastly -things. - -I remember on the first day of our advance meeting a young officer -of ours in charge of an armoured car which had broken down across the -frontier, outside a village. - -“I’d give a million pounds to get out of this job,” he said gloomily. - -“What’s the matter?” I asked. - -He told me that the game was already beginning, and swore frightful -oaths. - -“What game?” - -“Murder,” he answered sharply. “Don’t you get the news? Two of our -fellows have been killed in that village. Sniped from the windows. -Presently I shall be told to sweep the streets with machine-guns. Jolly -work, what?” - -He was utterly wrong, though where he heard the lie which made him -miserable I never knew. I walked into the village and found it peaceful. -No men of ours had been killed there. No men of ours had yet entered it. - -The boy who was to go forward with the leading cavalry patrol across the -Rothwasser that morning had “the needle” to the same degree. He leaned -sideways in his saddle and confided his fears to me with laughter which -did not conceal his apprehensions. - -“Hope there’s no trouble.... Haven’t the ghost of an idea what to do -if the Hun turns nasty. I don’t know a word of their beastly language -either! If I’m the boy who takes the wrong turning, don’t be too hard -on me!” - -It was a Sunday morning, with a cold white fog on the hill-tops, -and white frost on fir-trees and red bracken. Our cavalry and horse -artillery, with their transport drawn up on the Belgian side of the -frontier before the bugle sounded for the forward march, were standing -by their horses, clapping hands, beating chests, stamping feet. The men -wore their steel hats as though for an advance in the usual conditions -of warfare, and the troopers of the leading patrol rode forward with -drawn swords. They rode at the trot through pine forests along the edge -of deep ravines in which innumerable “Christmas-trees” were powdered -with glistening frost. There was the beat of horses’ hoofs on frozen -roads, but the countryside was intensely silent. The farmhouses we -passed and cottages under the shelter of the woods seemed abandoned. -No flags hung out from them like those millions of flags which had -fluttered along all the miles of our way through Belgium. Now and again, -looking back at a farmhouse window, I saw a face there, staring out, but -it was quickly withdrawn. A dog came out and barked at us savagely. - -“First sign of hostility!” said the cavalry lieutenant, turning round in -his saddle and laughing boyishly. The troopers behind him grinned under -their steel hats and then looked stem again, glancing sideways into the -glades of those silent fir-woods. - -“It would be easy to snipe us from those woods,” said Harding. “Too -damned easy!” - -“And quite senseless,” said Brand. “What good would it do them?” - -Harding was prepared to answer the question. He had been thinking it -out. - -“The Hun never did have any sense. He’s not likely to get it now. -Nothing will ever change him. He is a bad, treacherous, evil swine. We -must be prepared for the worst, and if it comes----” - -“What?” asked Brand. - -Harding had a grim look, and his mouth was hard. - -“We must act without mercy, as they did in Louvain.” - -“Wholesale murder, you mean?” said Brand harshly. - -“A free hand for machine-guns,” said Harding, “if they ask for it.” - -Brand gave his usual groan. - -“Oh, Lord!... Haven’t we finished with blood?” - -We dipped down towards Malmédy. There was a hairpin turn in the road and -we could see the town below us in the valley--a German town. - -“Pretty good map-reading!” shouted the cavalry kid. He was pleased with -himself for having led his troop on the right road, but I guessed that -he would be glad to halt this side of the mystery that lay in that town -where Sunday bells were ringing. - -A queer thing happened then. Up a steep bank was a party of girls. -German girls, of course, and the first civilians we had seen. A flutter -of white handkerchiefs came from them. They were waving to us. - -“Well, I’m damned!” said Harding. - -“Not yet,” answered Brand ironically, but he was as much astonished as -all of us. - -When we came into Malmédy the cavalry patrol halted in the market square -and dismounted. It was about midday and the German people were coming -out of church. Numbers of them surrounded us, staring at the horses, -whose sleek look seemed to amaze them, and at the men who lit up -cigarettes and loosened the straps of their steel hats. Some girls -patted the necks of the horses and said: “_Wundershon!_” - -A young man in the crowd in black civilian clothes with a bowler hat -spoke in perfect English to the sergeant-major: “Your horses are looking -fine! Ours are skin and bones. When will the infantry be here?” - -“Haven’t an idea,” said the sergeant-major gruffly. - -Another young man addressed himself to me in French, which he spoke as -though it were his native tongue. - -“Is this the first time you have been in Germany, monsieur?” - -I told him I had visited Germany before the war. - -“You will find us changed,” he said. “We have suffered very much, and -the spirit of the people is broken. You see, they have been hungry so -long.” - -I looked round at the crowd and saw some bonny-faced girls among them -and children who looked well-fed. It was only the younger men who had a -pinched look. - -“The people here do not seem hungry,” I said. - -He explained that the state of Malmédy was not so bad. It was only a -big-sized village and they could get produce from the farms about. All -the same, they were on short commons and were underfed. Never any meat. -No fats. “_Ersatz_” coffee. In the bigger towns there was real hunger, -or, at least, an _unternahrung_ or malnutrition, which was causing -disease in all classes, and great mortality among the children. - -“You speak French well,” I told him, and he said that many people in -Malmédy spoke French and German in a bi-lingual way. It was so close to -the Belgian frontier. - -“That is why the people here had no heart in the war, even in the -beginning. My wife was a Belgian girl. When I was mobilised she said, -‘You are going to kill my brothers,’ and wept very much. I think that -killed her. She died in ‘16.” - -The young man spoke gravely but without any show of emotion. He narrated -his personal history in the war. He had been in the first and second -battles of Ypres, then badly wounded and put down at the base as a clerk -for nearly two years. After that, when German man-power was running -short, he had been pushed into the ranks again and had fought in -Flanders, Cambrai, and Valenciennes. Now he had demobilised himself. - -“I am very glad the war is over, monsieur. It was a great stupidity from -the beginning. Now Germany is ruined.” - -He spoke in a simple, matter-of-fact way, as though describing natural -disturbances of life, regrettable, but inevitable. - -I asked him whether the people farther from the frontier would be -hostile to the English, troops, and he seemed surprised at my question. - -“Hostile! Why, sir?.... The war is over, and we can now be friends -again. Besides, the respectable people and the middle classes”--he used -the French word _bourgeoisie_--“will be glad of your coming. It is a -protection against the evil elements who are destroying property -and behaving in a criminal way--the sailors of the fleet and the low -ruffians.” - -_The war is over, and we can be friends again!_ That sentence in the -young man’s speech astonished me by its directness and simplicity. -Was that the mental attitude of the German people? Did they think that -England would forget and shake hands? Did they not realise the passion -of hatred that had been aroused in England by the invasion of Belgium, -the early atrocities, the submarine war, the sinking of the _Lusitania_, -the execution of Nurse Çavell, the air-raids over London--all the range -and sweep of German frightfulness? - -Then I looked at our troopers. Some of them were chatting with the -Germans in a friendly way. One of them close to me gave a cigarette to -a boy in a college cap who was talking to him in schoolboy English. -Another was in conversation with two German girls who were patting his -horse. We had been in the German village ten minutes. There was no sign -of hatred here, on one side or the other. Already something had happened -which in England, if they knew, would seem monstrous and incredible. A -spell had been broken, the spell which for four years had dominated the -souls of men and women. At least, it seemed to have been broken in the -village where for the first time English soldiers met the people of the -nation they had fought and beaten. These men of the first cavalry patrol -did not seem to be nourishing thoughts of hatred and vengeance. -They were not, it seemed, remembering atrocities. They were meeting -fellow-mortals with human friendliness, and seemed inclined to talk to -them and pass the time of day. Astounding! - -I saw Wickham Brand talking to a group of German children--boys in -sailor caps with the words _Hindenburg, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, -Unterseeboot_, printed in gold letters on the cap-bands, and girls with -yellow pigtails and coloured frocks. He pulled out a packet of chocolate -from a deep pocket of his British warm and broke it into small pieces. - -“Who would like a bit?” he asked in German, and there was a chorus of -“_Bitte!... Bitte schön!_” He held out a piece to the prettiest child, a -tiny fairy-like thing with gold-spun hair, and she blushed very vividly -and curtseyed when she took the chocolate, and then kissed Brand’s long -lean hand. Young Harding was standing near. He had an utterly bewildered -expression, as a man who sees the groundwork of his faith slipping -beneath him. He turned to me as I strolled his way and looked at me with -wide astonished eyes. - -“I don’t understand!” he stammered. “Haven’t these people any pride? -This show of friendliness--what does it mean? I’d rather they scowled -and showed their hatred than stand round fawning on us.... And our men! -They don’t seem to bear any malice. Look at that fellow gossiping with -those two girls! It’s shameful.... What have we been fighting for if it -ends in this sort of thing? It makes it all a farce!” - -He was so disturbed, so unnerved, by the shock of his surprise that -there were tears of vexation in his eyes. - -I could not argue with him or explain things to him. - -I was astonished myself, quite baffled by a German friendliness that was -certainly sincere and not a mask hiding either hatred or humiliation. -Those people of Malmédy were pleased to see us. As yet I could not -get the drift of their psychology, in spite of what the young -French-speaking German had told me. I gave Harding the benefit of that -talk. - -“This is a frontier town,” I said. “These people are not real Germans in -their sympathies and ideas.” - -That seemed to comfort Harding a little. He clung on to the thought -that when we had got beyond the frontier we should meet the hatred he -expected to see. He wanted to meet it. He wanted to see scowling looks, -deep humiliation, a shameful recognition of defeat, the evil nature of -the people we had been fighting. Otherwise, to him, the war was all a -lie. For four years he had been inspired, strengthened, and upheld by -hatred of the Germans. He believed not only in every atrocity story that -appeared in English newspapers, but also, in accordance with all else -he read, that every German was essentially and unutterably vile, brutal, -treacherous, and evil. The German people were to him a race apart--the -Huns. They had nothing in common with ordinary human nature, with its -kindliness and weakness. They were physically, mentally, and morally -debased. They were a race of devils, and they could not be allowed to -live. Civilisation could only be saved by their extermination, or -if that were impossible, by their utter subjection. All the piled-up -slaughter of British youth and French youth was to him justified by the -conviction that the last man of ours must die if need be in order to -crush Germany and kill Germans. It is true that he had not died, nor -even had been wounded, but that was his ill-luck. He had been in the -cavalry, and had not been given many chances of fighting. Before -the last phase, when the cavalry came into their own, he had been -transferred to the Intelligence (though he did not speak a word of -German) in order to organise their dispatch-rider service. He knew -nothing about dispatch-riding, but his cousin was the brother-in-law -of a general’s nephew, and he had been highly recommended for this -appointment, which had surprised and annoyed him. Still, as a young -man who believed in obedience to authority and in all old traditional -systems such as patronage and privilege, he had accepted the post -without protest. It had made no difference to his consuming hatred of -the Hun. When all his companions were pessimistic about final victory -he had remained an optimist, because of his faith that the Huns must be -destroyed or God would be betrayed. When some of his colleagues who -had lived in Germany before the war praised the German as a soldier and -exonerated the German people from part at least of the guilt of their -war lords, he tried to conceal his contempt for this folly (due to the -mistaken generosity of the English character) and repeated his own creed -of abhorrence for their race and character. “The only good German is -a dead German,” he said, a thousand times, to one’s arguments pleading -extenuating circumstances for German peasants, German women, German -children.... But now in this village of Malmédy on our first morning -across the frontier, within three minutes of our coming, English -troopers were chatting with Germans as though nothing had happened to -create ill-feeling on either side. Brand was giving chocolate to German -children, and German girls were patting the necks of English horses. - -“Yes,” he said, after my attempted explanation. “We’re too close to the -frontier. These people are different. Wait till we get on a bit. I’m -convinced we shall have trouble, and at the slightest sign of it we -shall sweep the streets with machine-gun fire. I’ve got my own revolver -handy, and I mean to use it without mercy if there’s any treachery.” - - - - -III - - -Harding had no need to use his revolver on the way to the Rhine or -in Cologne, where he stayed for some months after Armistice. We went on -with the cavalry into many villages and small towns, by slow stages, -the infantry following behind in strength, with guns and transport. The -girls outside Malmédy were not the only ones who waved handkerchiefs at -us. Now and then, it is true, there were scowling looks from men who -had obviously been German officers until a few weeks ago. Sometimes in -village inns the German inn-keeper would be sullen and silent, leaving -his wife or his maidservant to wait upon us. But even that was rare. -More often there was frank curiosity in the eyes of the people who -stared at us, and often unconcealed admiration at the smart appearance -of our troops. Often German inn-keepers welcomed our officers with bows -and smiles and prepared meat meals for us (in the country districts), -while explaining that meat was scarce and hardly tasted by ordinary -folk. Their wives and their maidservants praised God that the war was -over. - -“It lasted too long!” they said. “Oh, the misery of it! It was madness -to slaughter each other like that!” - -Brand and I went into a little shop to buy a toothbrush. - -The woman behind the counter talked about the war. - -“It was due to the wickedness of great people,” she said. “There are -many people who grew rich out of the war. They wanted it to go on and on -so that they could get more rich. They gorged themselves while the poor -starved. It was the poor who were robbed of their life-blood.” - -She did not speak passionately, but with a dull kind of anger. - -“My own life-blood was taken,”, she said presently, after wrapping up -the tooth-brush. “First they took Hans, my eldest. He was killed almost -at once--at Liège. Then they took my second-born, Friedrich. He was -killed at Ypres. Next, Wilhelm died--in hospital at Brussels. He had -both his legs blown off. Last they took little Karl, my youngest. He was -killed by an air-bomb, far behind the lines, near Valenciennes.” - -A tear splashed on the bit of paper in which she had wrapped the -tooth-brush. She wiped it away with her apron. - -“My man and I are now alone,” she said, handing us the packet. “We are -too old to have more children. We sit and talk of our sons who are dead, -and wonder why God did not stop the war.” - -“It is sad,” said Brand. He could find nothing else to say. Not with -this woman could he argue about German guilt. - -“_Ja, es ist traurig_.” - -She took the money with a “_Danke schön_.” - -In the town of Mürren I spent some time with Brand and others in. the -barracks where a number of trench-mortars and machine-guns were being -handed over by German officers according to the terms of the Armistice. -The officers were mostly young men, extremely polite, anxious to save -us any kind of trouble, marvellous in their concealment of any kind of -humiliation they may have felt--_must_ have felt--in this delivery of -arms. They were confused only for one moment, and that was when a boy -with a wheelbarrow trundled by with a load of German swords--elaborate -parade swords with gold hilts. - -One of them laughed and passed it off with a few words in English. - -“There goes the old pomp and glory---to the rubbish-heap!” - -Brand made things easier by a tactful sentence. - -“The world will be happier when we are all disarmed.” - -A non-commissioned officer talked to me. He had been a hairdresser in -Bayswater and a machine-gunner in Flanders. He was a little fellow with -a queer cockney accent. - -“Germany is _kaput_. We shall have a bad time in front of us. No money. -No trade. All the same, it will be better in the long run. No more -conscription; no more filthy war. We’re all looking to President Wilson -and his ‘Fourteen Points.’ There is the hope of the world. We can hope -for a good peace--fair all round. Of course we’ll have to pay, but we -shall get liberty, like in England.” - -Was the man sincere? Were any of these people sincere? Or were they -crawling, fawning, hiding their hatred, ready for any treachery? I could -not make up my mind.... - -We went into Cologne some days before our programme at the urgent -request of the _Burgermeister_. We were invited in! The German seamen -of the Grand Fleet had played the devil, as in all the towns they had -passed through. They had established a Soldiers’ and Workmen’s Council -on the Russian system, raised the Red Flag, liberated the criminals from -the prisons. Shops had been sacked, houses looted. The _Burgermeister_ -desired British troops to ensure law and order. - -There was no disorder visible when we entered Cologne. The -revolutionaries had disappeared. The streets were thronged with -middle-class folk, among whom were thousands of men who had taken -off their uniforms a few days before our coming, or had “civilised” - themselves by tearing off their shoulder-straps and badges. As our -first squadron rode into the great cathedral square on the way to the -Hohenzollem Bridge many people in the crowds turned their heads away and -did not glance at the British cavalry. We were deliberately ignored, -and I thought that for the Germans it was the best attitude, with most -dignity. Others stared gravely at the passing cavalcade, showing no -excitement, no hostility, no friendliness, no emotion of any kind. Here -and there I met eyes which were regarding me with a dark, brooding look, -and others in which there was profound melancholy. That night, when I -wandered out alone and lost my way, and asked for direction, two young -men, obviously officers until a few days back, walked part of the way to -put me right and said “_Bitte schön! Bitte!_” when I thanked them, and -saluted with the utmost courtesy.... I wondered what would have happened -in London if we had been defeated and if German officers had walked -out alone at night and lost themselves in by-streets and asked the way. -Imagination fails before such a thought. Certainly our civility would -not have been so easy. We could not have hidden our hatred like that, if -these were hiding hatred. - -Somehow, I could not find even the smouldering fires of hate in any -German with whom I spoke that day. I could find only a kind of dazed and -stupor-like recognition of defeat, a deep sadness among humble people, -a profound anxiety as to the future fate of a ruined Germany, and a hope -in the justice of England and America. - -A score of us had luncheon at the Domhof Hotel, opposite the cathedral -which Harding had hoped to see in flames. The manager bowed us in as -if we had been distinguished visitors in time of peace. The head-waiter -handed us the menu and regretted that there was not much choice of food, -though they had scoured the country to provide for us. He and six other -waiters spoke good English, learnt in London, and seemed to have had no -interruption in their way of life, in spite of war. They were not rusty -in their art, but masters of its service according to tradition. Yet -they had all been in the fighting-ranks until the day of Armistice, and -the head-waiter, a man of forty, with hair growing grey and the look of -one who had spent years in a study rather than in front-line trenches -after table management, told me that he had been three times wounded -in Flanders, and in the last phase had been a machine-gunner in the -rearguard actions round Grevilliers and Bapaume. He revealed his mind to -me between the soup and the stew--strange talk from a German waiter. - -“I used to ask myself a hundred thousand times, ‘Why am I here--in this -mud--fighting against the English whom I know and like? What devil’s -meaning is there in all this? What are the evil powers that have forced -us to this insane massacre?’ I thought I should go mad, and I desired -death.” - -I did not argue with him, for the same reason that Brand and I did not -argue with the woman behind the counter who had lost four sons. I did -not say, “Your war lords were guilty of this war. The evil passion -and philosophy of you German people brought this upon the world--your -frightfulness.” I listened to a man who had been stricken by tragedy, -who had passed through its horrors and was now immensely sad. - -At a small table next to us were the boy who had led the first cavalry -patrol and two fellow-officers. They were not eating their soup. They -were talking to the waiter, a young fellow who was making a map with -knives and spoons. - -“This is the village of Fontaine Notre Dame,” he said. “I was just here -with my machine-gun when you attacked.” - -“Extraordinary!” said one of the young cavalry officers. “I was here, -at the corner of this spoon, lying on my belly with my nose in the -mud--scared stiff.” - -The German waiter and the three officers laughed together. Something had -happened which had taken away from them the desire to kill each other. -Our officers did not suspect there might be poison in their soup. The -young waiter was not nervous lest one of the knives he laid should be -thrust into his heart.... - -Some nights later I met Wickham Brand in the Hohestrasse. He took me by -the arm and laughed in a strange, ironical way. - -“What do you think of it all?” he asked. - -I told him that if old men from St. James’s Street clubs in London, and -young women in the suburbs clamouring for the Kaiser’s head, could be -transported straight to Cologne without previous warning of the things -they would see, they would go raving mad. - -Brand agreed. - -“It knocks one edgewise--even those of us who understand.” - -We stood on one side, by a shop window filled with beautiful -porcelain-ware, and watched the passing crowd. It was a crowd of German -middle-class, well dressed, apparently well fed. The girls wore heavy -furs. The men were in black coats and bowler hats, or in military -overcoats and felt hats. Among them, not aloof, but mingling with them, -laughing with them, were English and Canadian soldiers. Many of them -were arm-in-arm with German girls. Others were surrounded by groups of -young Germans who had been, unmistakably, soldiers until a few weeks -earlier. English-speaking Germans were acting as interpreters in the -exchange of experiences, gossip, opinions. The German girls needed no -interpreters. Their eyes spoke, and their laughter. - -Brand and I went into an immense _café_ called the “Germania,” so -densely crowded that we had to wander round to find a place, foggy with -tobacco-smoke through which electric light blazed, noisy with the -music of a loud, unceasing orchestra, which, as we entered, was playing -selections from “Patience.” Here also were many English and Canadian -officers and men, sitting at the same tables with Germans, who laughed -and nodded at them, clinked their mugs or wine-glasses with them, and -raised bowler hats to British Tommies when they left the tables -with friendly greetings on both sides. There was no orgy here, no -impropriety. Some of the soldiers were becoming slightly fuddled with -Rhine wine, but not noisily. “Glad eyes” were passing between them -and German girls, or conversations made up by winks and signs and -oft-repeated words, but all quietly and respectfully in outward -behaviour. - -Brand and I were wedged close to a table at which sat one of our -sergeant-majors, a corporal, a middle-aged German woman, and two -German girls. One of the girls spoke English remarkably well, and the -conversation of our two men was directed to her, and through her to the -others. Brand and I were eavesdroppers. - -“Tell your ma,” said the sergeant-major, “that I shouldn’t have been -so keen to fight Germans if I had known they were such pleasant, decent -people, as far as I find ‘em at present, and I take people as I find -‘em.” - -The girl translated to her mother and sister and then answered: “My -mother says the war was prepared by the rich people in Europe, who made -the people mad by lies.” - -“Ah,” said the sergeant-major, “I shouldn’t wonder! I know some of them -swine. All the same, of course, you began it, you know.” - -There was another translation, and the girl answered again: “My mother -says the Germans didn’t begin it. The Russians began it by moving their -armies. The Russians hated us and wanted war.” - -The sergeant-major gave a snort of laughter. - -“The Russians?... They soon tired of it, anyhow. Let us all down, eh?” - -“What about atrocities?’’ said the corporal, who was a cockney. - -“Atrocities?” said the English-speaking girl. “Oh, yes, there were many. -The Russians were very cruel.” - -“Come oft it,” said the corporal. “I mean German atrocities.” - -“German?” said the girl. “No, our soldiers were well behaved--always! -There were many lies told in the English papers.” * - -“That’s true enough,” said the sergeant-major. “Lies? Why, they fed us -up with lies. ‘The Germans are starving. The Germans are on their last -legs.’ ‘The great victory at Neuve Chapelle.’ God! I was in that great -victory. The whole battalion cut to pieces and not an officer left. A -bloody shambles--and no sense in it.... Another drop of wine, my dear?” - -“Seems to me,” said the cockney corporal, “that there was a deal of -dirty work on both sides. I’m not going to say there wasn’t no German -atrocities--lies or no lies--becos saw a few of ‘em myself, an’ no -mistake. But what I says now is what I says when I lay in the lousy -trenches with five-point-nines busting down the parapets. -The old devil ‘as got us all by the legs!’ I said, and ‘ad a -fellow-feelin’ for the poor blighters on the other side of the barbed -wire lying in the same old mud. Now I’m beginning to think the Germans -are the same as us, no better nor no worse, I reckon. Any ‘ow, you -can tell your sister, miss, that I like the way she does ‘er ‘air. It -reminds me of my Liz.” - -The English-speaking German girl did not understand this speech. She -appealed to the sergeant-major. - -“What does your friend say?” - -The sergeant-major roared with laughter.. - -“My chum says that a pretty face cures a lot of ill-feeling. -Your sister is a sweet little thing, he says. _Comprenney?_ Perhaps -you had better not translate that part to your ma. Have another drop of -wine, my dear.” - -Presently the party rose from the table and went out, the sergeant-major -paying for the drinks in a lordly way and saying, “After you, ma’am,” to -the mother of the two girls. - -“All this,” said Brand when they had gone, “is very instructive.... And -I’ve been making discoveries.” - -“What kind?” - -Brand looked away into the vista of the room, and his eyes roved about -the tables where other soldiers of ours sat with other Germans. - -“I’ve found out,” he said, “that the British hatred of a nation breaks -down in the presence of its individuals. I’ve discovered that it is not -in the character of English fighting-men--Canadian, too, by the look of -it--to demand vengeance from the innocent for the sins of the guilty. -I’m seeing that human nature, ours anyhow, swings back to the normal as -soon as an abnormal strain is released. It is normal in human nature -to be friendly towards its kind, in spite of five years’ education in -savagery.” - -I doubted that, and told him so, remembering scenes in Ghent and Lille, -and that girl Marthe, and the woman of Venders. That shook Brand a -little from his new point of view, and he shifted his ground with the -words: “Perhaps I’m wrong there.” - -‘He told me of other “discoveries” of his, after conversation with many -German people, explaining perhaps the lack of hostility and humiliation -which had surprised us all. They were glad to see the English because -they were afraid of the French and Belgians, with their desire for -vengeance. They believed in English fair-play in spite of all the wild -propaganda of the war. Now that the Kaiser had fled and Germany was a -Republic, they believed that, in spite of defeat and great ruin, there -would be a peace which would give them a chance of recovery, and a new -era of liberty, according to the pledges of President Wilson and the -terms of the “Fourteen Points.” They believed they had been beaten by -the hunger blockade, and not by the failure of the German Armies in the -field, and they would not admit that as a people they were more guilty -in the war than any others of the fighting nations. - -“It is a sense of guilt,” said Brand, “that must be brought home to -them. They must be convinced of that before they can get clean again and -gain the world’s forgiveness.” - -He leaned over the table with his square face in the palms of his hands. - -“God knows,” he said, “that there was evil on both sides. We have our -Junkerdom, too. The philosophy of our old men was not shining in its -Christian charity. We share the guilt of the war. Still, the Germans the -aggressors. They must acknowledge that.” - -“The German war lords and militarists,” I suggested. “Not that woman who -lost her four sons, nor peasants dragged from their ploughs, ignorant of -_Welt-politik_.” - -“It’s all a muddle,” said Brand. “I can’t sort it out. I’m full of -bewilderment and contradictions. Sometimes when I look at these Germans -in the streets, some of them so smug, I shudder and say, ‘These are the -people who killed my pals,’ and I’m filled with cold rage. But when they -tell me all they suffered, and their loathing of the war, I pity them -and say, ‘They were trapped, like we were, by false ideas, and false -systems, and the foul lies of politicians, and the dirtiness of old -diplomacy, and the philosophy of Europe leading up to that.” - -Then he told me something which interested me more at the time than his -groping to find truth, because a touch of personal drama is always more -striking to the mind than general aspects and ideas. - -“I’m billeted at the house of Franz von Kreuzenach. You -remember?--Eileen’s friend.” - -I was astounded at that. - -“What an amazing coincidence!” - -“It was no coincidence,” he said. “I arranged it. I had that letter to -deliver, and I wanted to meet the fellow. As yet, however, I have only -seen his mother and sister. They are very civil.” - -So did Wickham Brand “ask for trouble,” as soldiers say, and certainly -he found it before long. - - - - -IV - - -The first meeting between Wickham Brand and young Franz von Kreuzenach -had been rather dramatic, according to my friend’s account of it, and he -did not dramatise his stories much, in spite of being (before the war) -an unsuccessful novelist. It had happened on the third night after -his presentation of the billeting-paper which by military right of -occupation ordered the owners of the house to provide a bedroom and -sitting-room for an officer. There had been no trouble about that. The -_Madchen_ who had answered the door of the big white house in a side -street off the Kaiserring had dropped a curtsey, and in answer to -Brand’s fluent and polite German said at once, “_Kommmen Sie herein, -bitte_,” and took him into a drawing-room to the right of the hall, -leaving him there while she went to fetch “_die gnadige Baronin_,” that -is to say, the Baroness von Kreuzenach. Brand remained standing, and -studied the German drawing-room to read its character as a key to that -of the family under whose roof he was coming by right of conquest, for -that, in plain words, was the meaning of his presence. - -It was a large square room, handsomely and heavily furnished in an -old-fashioned style, belonging perhaps to the Germany of Bismarck, but -with here and there in its adornment a lighter and more modern touch. -On one wall, in a gilt frame to which fat gilt cupids clung, was a -large portrait of William I. of Prussia, and on the wall opposite, in a -similar frame, a portrait of the ex-Kaiser William II. Brand saw also, -with an instant thrill of remembrance, two large steel engravings from -Winterhalter’s portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He had -seen them, as a child, in his grandfather’s house at Kew, and in -the houses of schoolfellows’ grandfathers, who cherished these -representations of Victoria and Albert with almost religious loyalty. -The large square of Turkey carpet on polished boards, a mahogany -sideboard, and some stiff big armchairs of clumsily carved oak, -were reminiscent of German furniture and taste in the period of the -mid-nineteenth century, when ours was equally atrocious. The later -period had obtruded itself into that background. There was a piano in -white wood at one end of the room, and here and there light chairs -in the “New Art” style of Germany, with thin legs and straight -uncomfortable backs. The most pleasing things in the room were some -porcelain figures of Saxon and Hanover ware, little German ladies with -pleated gowns and low-necked bodices, and, on the walls, a number of -water-colour drawings, mostly of English scenes, delicately done, with -vision and a nice sense of atmosphere. - -“The younger generation thrusting out the old,” thought Brand, “and the -spirit of both of them destroyed by what has happened in five years.” - -The door opened, he told me, when he had taken stock of his -surroundings, and there came in two women, one middle-aged the other -young. He guessed that he was in the presence of Frau von Kreuzenach and -her daughter, and made his bow, with an apology for intruding upon them. -He hoped that they would not be in the least degree disturbed by his -billeting-order. He would need only a bedroom and his breakfast. - -The Baroness was courteous but rather cold in her dignity. She was a -handsome woman of about forty-eight, with very fair hair streaked with -grey, and a thin, aristocratic type of face, with thin lips. She wore a -black silk dress with some fur round her shoulders. - -“It will be no inconvenience to us, sir,” she answered in good English, -a little hard and over-emphasised. “Although the English people are -pleased to call us Huns”--here she laughed good-humouredly--“I trust -that you will not be too uncomfortable in a German house, in spite -of the privations due to our misfortunes and the severity of your -blockade.” - -In that short speech there was a hint of hostility--masked under a -graciousness of manner--which Wickham Brand did not fail to perceive. - -“As long as it is not inconvenient----” he said awkwardly. - -It was the daughter who now spoke, and Brand was grateful for her -friendly words and impressed by her undeniable and exceptional good -looks. That she was the daughter of the older woman was clear at a -glance. She had the same thin face and fair hair, but youth was on her -side, and her finely-chiselled features had no hardness of line that -comes from age or bitterness. Her hair was like spun gold, as one -sees it in Prussia more, I fancy, than in southern Germany, and her -complexion was that perfect rose-red and lily-white which often belongs -to German girls, and is doll-like if they are soft and plump, as many -are. This girl’s fault was thinness, but to Brand, not a sentimentalist -nor quickly touched by feminine influence (I have written that, but on -second thoughts believe that under Brand’s ruggedness there was a deep -strain of sentiment, approaching weakness), she seemed flower-like and -spiritual. So he told me after his early acquaintance with her. - -Her first words to him were charming. - -“We have suffered very much from the war, sir, but we welcome you to our -house, not as an enemy, because the war finished with the Armistice, but -as an Englishman who may come to be our friend.” - -“Thanks,” said Brand. - -He could find nothing else to say at the moment, but spoke that one word -gratefully. - -The mother added something to her daughter’s speech. - -“We believed the English were our friends before they declared war upon -us. We were deeply saddened by our mistake.” - -“It was inevitable,” said Brand, “after what had happened.” - -The daughter--her name was Elsa--put her hand on her mother’s arm with a -quick gesture of protest against any other words about the war. - -“I will show Captain Brand to his rooms.” - -Brand wondered at her quickness in knowing his name after one glance -at his billeting-paper, and said, “Please do not trouble, _gnàdiges -Fraulein_,” when he saw a look of disapproval, almost of alarm, on the -mother’s face. - -“It will be better for Truda to show the gentleman to his rooms. I will -ring for her.” - -Elsa von Kreuzenach challenged her mother’s authority by a smile of -amusement, and there was a slight deepening of that delicate colour -in her face. “Truda is boiling the usual cabbage for the usual -_Mittagessen._ I will go, mother.” - -She turned to Brand with a smile and bowed to him. - -“I will act as your guide upstairs, Captain Brand. After that you may -find your own way. It is not difficult.” - -Brand, who described the scene to me, told me that the girl went very -quickly up a wide flight of stairs so that in his big riding boots he -found it difficult to keep pace with her. She went down a long corridor -lined with etchings on the walls, and opened a white door leading into -a big room furnished as a library. There was a wood fire burning there, -and at a glance Brand noticed one or two decorations on the walls--a -pair of foils with a fencing-mask and gauntlets, some charcoal -drawings--one of a girl’s head, which was this girl’s when that gold -hair of hers hung in two Gretchen pig-tails--and some antlers. - -“Here you can sit and smoke your pipe,” said Elsa von Kreuzenach. “Also, -if you are bored, you can read those books. You see we have many English -authors--Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, G. K. Chesterton, Kipling--heaps. My -brother and I used to read all we could get of English books.” - -Brand remembered that Franz von Kreuzenach had read Kipling. He had -quoted “Puck of Pook’s Hill” to Eileen O’Connor. - -“Now and then,” he said, “I may read a little German.” - -“Pooh!” said the girl. “It is so dull, most of it. Not exciting, like -yours.” - -She opened another door. - -“Here is your bedroom. It used to belong to my brother Heinrich.” - -“Won’t he want it?” asked Brand. - -He could have bitten his tongue out for that question when the girl -answered it. - -“He was killed in Flanders.” - -A sudden sadness took possession of her eyes and Brand said, “I’m -sorry.” - -“Yes. I was sorry, too, and wept for weeks. He was a nice boy, so jolly, -as you say. He would have been an artist if he had lived. All those -charcoal sketches are by him.” - -She pointed to the drawing of a young man’s head over the -dressing-table. - -“That is my brother Franz. He is home again, _Gott sei dank!_ Heinrich -worshipped him.” - -Brand looked at the portrait of the man who had saved Eileen O’Connor. -He had Eileen’s letter to him in his pocket. It was a good-looking head, -clean-cut, with frank eyes, rather noble. - -“I hope we shall meet one day,” said Brand. - -Elsa von Kreuzenach seemed pleased with those words. - -“He will like to meet you--ever so much. You see, he was educated at -Oxford, and does not forget his love for England.” - -“In spite of the war?” asked Brand. - -The girl put both her hands to her breast. - -“The war!” she said. “Let us forget the years when we all went mad. It -was a madness of hate and of lies and of ignorance--on both sides. The -poor people in all countries suffered for the sins of the wicked men -who made this war against our will and called out our evil passions. -The wicked men in England were as bad as those in Germany. Now it is for -good people to build up a new world out of the ruins that war made, the -ruin of hearts.” - -She asked a direct question of Brand, earnestly. - -“Are you one of those who will go on hating?” - -Brand hesitated. He could not forget many things. He knew, so he told -me, that he had not yet killed the old hatred that had made him a sniper -in No Man’s Land. Many times it surged up again. He could not forgive -the Germans for many cruelties. To this girl, then, he hedged a little. - -“The future must wipe out the past. The peace must not be for -vengeance.” - -At those last words the blue eyes of Elsa von Kreuzenach lighted up -gladly. - -“That is the old English spirit! I have said to my mother and father a -thousand times, ‘England is generous at heart. She loves fair play. Now -that victory is hers she will put away base passions and make a noble -peace that will help us out of our agony and ruin. All our hope is with -England, and with the American President, who is the noblest man on -earth.’” - -“And your father and mother?” asked Brand. “What do they say?” - -The girl smiled rather miserably. - -“They belong to the old school. Franz and I are of the younger -generation... My father denounces England as the demon behind all the -war-devils, and little mother finds it hard to forgive England for -joining the war against us, and because the English Army killed -Heinrich. You must be patient with them.” - -She spoke as though Brand belonged already to their family life and -would need great tact. - -She moved towards the door, and stood framed there in its white -woodwork, a pretty figure. - -“We have two maidservants for this great house,” she said. “The war -has made us poor. Truda and Gretchen they are called. They are -both quarrelling for the pleasure of waiting on you. They are both -frightfully excited to have an English officer in the house.” - -“Queer!” said Brand, laughing. - -“Why queer?” asked Elsa von Kreuzenach. “I am a little excited, too.” - -She made a half-curtsey, like an early Victorian girl; and then closed -his door, and Brand was sorry, as he told me quite frankly, that he was -left alone. - -“The girl’s a pretty piece of Dresden china,” he said. - -When I chaffed him with a “Take care, old lad!” he only growled and -muttered, “Oh, to hell with that! I suppose I can admire a pretty thing, -even if it’s made in Germany?” - -Brand told me that he met Elsa’s father and brother on the third evening -that he slept in the Kreuzenachs’ house. When he arrived that evening at -about five o’clock, the maid-servant, Truda, who “did” his bedroom and -dusted his sitting-room with a German passion for cleanliness and with -many conversational advances, informed him with a look of mysterious -importance that the “Old Man” wanted to see him in the drawing-room. - -“What old man?” asked Brand, at which Truda giggled and said, “The old -Herr Baron.” - -“He hates the English like ten thousand devils,” added Truda -confidentially. - -“Perhaps I had better not go then,” was Brand’s answer. - -Truda told him that he would have to go. When the old Herr Baron asked -for a thing it had to be given him. The only person who dared to disobey -him was Frâulein Elsa, who was very brave and a “_hubsches Madchen._” - -Brand braced himself for the interview, but felt extremely nervous -when Truda rapped at the drawingroom door, opened it, and announced in -German: “The English officer!” - -The family von Kreuzenach was in full strength, obviously waiting for -his arrival. The Baroness was in an evening gown, of black silk showing -her bare neck and arms. She was sitting stiffly in a high-backed chair -by the piano, and was very handsome in her cold way. - -Her husband, General von Kreuzenach, was pretending to read a book by -the fireside. He was a tall, bald-headed, heavy-jowled man with a short -white moustache. The ribbon of the Iron Cross was fastened to the top -buttonhole of his frock-coat. - -Elsa was sitting on a stool by his side, and on a low seat, with his -back to the fire, was a tall young man with his left arm in a sling, -whom Brand knew at once to be Franz von Kreuzenach, Eileen O’Connor’s -friend. - -When Brand came into the room everybody rose in a formal, frightening -way, and Elsa’s mother rose very graciously and spoke to her husband. - -“This, Baron, is Captain Brand, the English officer who is billeted in -our house.” - -The Baron bowed stiffly to Brand. - -“I hope, sir, that my servants are attending to your needs in every way. -I beg of you to believe that as an old soldier I wish to fulfil my duty -as an officer and a gentleman, however painful the circumstances in -which you find us.” - -Brand replied with equal gravity, regretting his intrusion, and -expressing his gratitude for the great courtesy that had been shown to -him. Curiously, he told me, he had a strong temptation to laugh. The -enormous formality of the reception touched some sense of absurdity -so that he wanted to laugh loudly and wildly. Probably that was sheer -nervousness. - -“Permit me to present my son,” said the lady. “Lieutenant Franz von -Kreuzenach.” - -The young man came forward and clicked heels in the German fashion, but -his way of shaking hands and his easy “How do you do?” were perfectly -English. For a moment Brand met his eyes, and found them frank and -friendly. He had a vision of this man sitting in Eileen O’Connor’s -room, gazing at her with love in his eyes, and, afterwards, embarrassed, -shameful, and immensely sad in that trial scene. - -Elsa also shook hands with him and helped to break the hard ice of -ceremony. - -“My brother is very glad to meet you. He was at Oxford, you know. Come -and sit here. You will take tea, I am sure.” - -They had prepared tea for him specially, and Elsa served it like an -English girl, charmingly. - -Brand was not an easy conversationalist. His drawingroom manners were -_gauche_ always, and that evening in the German drawing-room he felt, he -told me, “a perfect fool,” and could think of no small talk. Franz von -Kreuzenach helped him out by talking about Oxford, and Brand felt more -at ease when he found that the young German officer knew some of his -old college friends and described a “rag” in his own third year. The -old Baron sat stiffly, listening with mask-like gravity to this -conversation. Elsa laughed without embarrassment at her brother’s -description of à “debagging” incident, when the trousers of a proctor -had been removed in “the High,” and the Frau von Kreuzenach permitted -herself a wintry smile. - -“Before the war,” she said, “we wished our children to get an English -education. Elsa went to a school at Brighton. We were very fond of -England.” - -The general joined in the conversation for the first time. - -“It was a weakness. Without offence, sir, I think that our German youth -would have been better employed at German universities, where education -is more seriously regarded, and where the national spirit is fostered -and strengthened.” - -Brand announced that he had been to Heidelberg University, and agreed -that German students take their studies more seriously than English. - -“We go to our universities for character more than for knowledge.” - -“Yes,” said the elder von Kreuzenach. “It is there the English learn -their Imperialism and political ambitions. From their point of view they -are right. English pride--so arrogant--is a great strength.” - -Franz von Kreuzenach toned down his father’s remark. - -“My father uses the word pride in its best sense--pride of race and -tradition. Personally, what struck me most at Oxford was the absence of -all deliberate philosophical influence. The men were very free in their -opinions. Most of those in my set were anti-imperialists and advanced -Liberals, in a light-hearted way. But I fancy most of them did not worry -very much about political ideas. They were up for ‘a good time,’ -and made the most of youth, in sport and companionship. They laughed -enormously. I think the Germans laugh too little. We are lacking in a -national sense of humour, except of a coarse and rustic type.” - -“I entirely disagree with you, Franz,” said the elder man sternly. “I -find my own sense of humour sufficiently developed. You are biassed by -your pro-English sympathy, which I find extraordinary and regrettable -after what has happened.” - -He turned to Brand and said that as a soldier he would understand that -courtesy to individuals did not abolish the sacred duty of hating a -country which was essentially hostile to his own in spirit and in act. - -“England,” he added, “has behaved in an unforgivable way. For many years -before the war she plotted the ruin of Germany in alliance with Russia -and France. She challenged Germany’s trade interests and national -development in every part of the globe, and built a great fleet for the -sole purpose of preventing Germany’s colonial expansion. England has -always been our enemy since she became aware of our increasing strength, -for she will brook no rival. I do not blame her, for that is the right -of her national egotism. But as a true German I have always recognised -the inevitability of our conflict.” - -Brand had no need to answer this denunciation, for Elsa von Kreuzenach -broke into her father’s speech impatiently. - -“You are too bad, father! Captain Brand does not wish to spend the -evening in political argument. You know what Franz and I think. We -believe that all the evil of the war was caused by silly old hatred and -greedy rivalries. Isn’t the world big enough for the free development -of all its peoples? If not, then life is not worth living, and the human -race must go on killing each other until the world is a wilderness.” - -“I agree,” said Brand, looking at Elsa. “The peoples of Europe must -resist all further incitements to make war on each other. Surely the -American President has given us all a new philosophy by his call for a -League of Nations, and his promise of peace without vengeance, with the -self-determination of peoples.” - -“That is true,” said Franz von Kreuzenach. “The Allies are bound by -Wilson’s ‘Fourteen Points.’ We agreed to the Armistice on that basis, -and it is because of the promise that lies in those clauses--the charter -of a New World--that the German people, and the Austrians, accept their -defeat with resignation, and look forward with hope--in spite of our -present ruin--to a greater liberty and to a more beautiful democracy.” - -“Yes,” said Elsa, “what my brother says, Captain Brand, explains the -spirit with which your English soldiers have been received on the Rhine. -Perhaps you expected hostility, hatred, black looks? No, the German -people welcome you, and your American comrades, because the bitterness -of defeat is softened by the knowledge that there is to be no more -bloodshed--alas, we are drained of blood!--and that the peace will begin -a nobler age in history for all of us.” - -The general shifted in his chair so that it scraped the polished boards. -A deep wave of colour swept up to his bald head. - -“Defeat?” he said. “My son and daughter talk of defeat!... There was no -defeat. The German Armies were invincible to the last. They never lost a -battle. They fell back, not because of their own failure but because the -heart of the German people was sapped by the weakness of hunger, caused -by the infamous English blockade, which starved our women and children. -_Ja_, even our manhood was weakened by starvation. Still more, our -civilians were poisoned by a pestilential heresy learnt in Russia, a -most damnable pacifism, which destroyed their will to win. Our glorious -armies were stabbed in the back by anarchy and treachery.” - -“It is defeat, sir, all the same,” said Franz von Kreuze-nach, with grim -deference, to his father. “Let us face the tragedy of the facts. As an -officer of the rearguard defence, I have to admit, too, that the German -Armies were beaten in the field. Our war machine was worn out and -disintegrated by the repeated blows that struck us. Our man-power was -exhausted, and we could no longer resist the weight of the Allied -Armies. The Americans had immense reserves of men to throw in against -us. We could only save ourselves by retreat. Field Marshal von -Hindenburg himself has admitted that.” - -The general’s face was no longer flushed with angry colour. He was very -white, with a kind of dead look, except for the smouldering fire of his -eyes. He spoke in a low, choking voice, in German. - -“If I had known that a son of mine, bearing the name of Franz von -Kreuzenach, would have admitted the defeat of the German Army before an -officer of an enemy power I would have strangled him at birth.” - -He grasped the arms of his chair and made one or two efforts to rise, -but could not do so. - -“Anna!” he commanded harshly, to his wife, “give me your arm. This -officer will excuse me, I trust. I feel unwell.” - -Franz von Kreuzenach went quickly over to his father, before his mother -could rise. - -“Father, I deeply regret having pained you. The truth is tragic -enough----” - -The old man answered him ferociously. - -“You have not spoken truth, but lies. You are a disgrace to the rank of -a German officer and to my name. You have been infected by the poison of -socialism and anarchy. Anna--your arm!” - -Elsa’s mother stooped over her husband and lifted his hand to her lips. - -“_Mein lieber Mann_,” she said very softly. - -The old man rose stiffly, leaning on his wife’s arm, and bowed to Brand. - -“I beg you to excuse me, sir. As a German soldier I do not admit the -words ‘defeat’ or ‘retreat,’ even when spoken within my own household. -The ever-glorious German Army has never been defeated, and has never -retreated--except according to plan. I wish you goodnight.” - -Brand was standing, and bowed to the general in silence. - -It was a silence which lasted after the husband and wife had left the -room. The girl Elsa was mopping her eyes. Franz von Kreuzenach stood, -very pale, by the empty chair in which his father had sat. He was the -first to speak. - -“I’m awfully sorry. I ought not to have spoken like that before my -father. He belongs to the old school.” - -Brand told me that he felt abominably uncomfortable, and wished with all -his heart that he had not been billeted in this German house. - -Elsa rose quickly and put her hand on her brother’s arm. - -“I am glad you spoke as you did, Franz. It is hateful to hurt our dear -father, but it is necessary to tell the truth now, or we cannot save -ourselves, and there will be no new era in the world. It is the younger -generation that must re-shape the world, and that cannot be done if we -yield to old falsehoods and go the way of old traditions.” - -Franz raised his sister’s hand to his lips, and Brand told me that his -heart softened at the sight of that caress, as it had when Elsa’s mother -kissed the hand of her old husband. It seemed to him symbolical of the -two generations, standing together, the old against the young, the young -against the old. - -“In England, also,” he said, “we have those who stand by hate, and those -who would break with the old traditions and forget, as soon as possible, -old enmities.” - -“It is the new conflict,” said Franz von Kreuzenach solemnly. “It will -divide the world and many houses, as Christ’s gospel divided father from -son and blood-brothers. It is the new agony.” - -“The new hope,” said Elsa passionately. - -Brand made an early excuse to retire to his room, and Franz von -Kreuzenach conducted him upstairs and carried his candlestick. - -“Thanks,” said Brand, in the doorway of his room. Then suddenly -he remembered Eileen O’Connor’s letter, and put his hand into his -breast-pocket for his case. - -“I have a letter for you,” he said. - -“So?” The young German was surprised. - -“From a lady in Lille,” said Brand. “Miss Eileen O’Connor.” - -Franz von Kreuzenach started violently, and for a moment or two he -was incapable of speech. When he took the letter from Brand his hand -trembled. - -“You know her?” he said at last. - -“I knew her in old days and met her in Lille,” answered - -Brand. “She told me of your kindness to her. I promised to thank you -when I met you. I do so now.” - -He held out his hand and Franz von Kreuzenach grasped it in a hard grip. - -“She is well?” he asked, with deep emotion. - -“Well and happy,” said Brand. - -“That is good.” - -The young German was immensely embarrassed, absurdly self-conscious and -shy. - -“In Lille,” he said, “I had the honour of her friendship.” - -“She told me,” answered Brand. “I saw some of your songs in her room.” - -“Yes, I sang to her.” - -Franz von Kreuzenach laughed awkwardly. Then suddenly a look of -something like fear--certainly alarm--changed his expression. - -“I must beg of you to keep secret any knowledge of my--my -friendship--with that lady. She acted--rashly. If it were known, even -by my father, that I did--what I did--my honour, perhaps even my life, -would be unsafe. You understand, I am sure.” - -“Perfectly,” said Brand. - -“As a German officer,” said Franz von Kreuzenach, “I took great risk.” - -He emphasised his words. - -“As a German officer I took liberties with my duty--because of a higher -law.” - -“A higher law than discipline,” said Brand. “Perhaps a nobler duty than -the code of a German officer.” - -He spoke with a touch of irony, but Franz von Kreuzenach was unconscious -of that. - -“Our duty to God,” he said gravely. “Human pity. Love.” - -An expression of immense sentiment filled his eyes An Englishman would -have masked it more guardedly. - -“Good-night,” said Brand, “and thanks again.” - -The young German clicked his heels and bowed. - -“Good-night, sir.” - -Brand went to bed in a leisurely way, and before sleeping heard a violin -being played in the room above his own. By the tune he remembered the -words of an old song, as Eileen O’Connor had sung it in Lille, and as he -had learnt it in his own home before the war. - - “There’s one that is pure as an angel, - - And fair as the flowers of May, - - They call her the gentle maiden - - Wherever she takes her way.” - -Franz von Kreuzenach was having an orgy of sentiment, and Brand, -somehow, envied him. - - - - -V - - -Our entry into Cologne and life among the people whom we had -been fighting for four years and more was an amazing psychological -experience, and not one of us there on the Rhine could escape its subtle -influence upon our opinions and subconscious state of mind. Some of our -officers, I am sure, were utterly unaware of the change being wrought -in them by daily association with German civilians. They did not realise -how, day by day, their old beliefs on the subject of “the Hun” were -being broken down by contact with people who behaved with dignity for -the most part, and according to the ordinary rules of human nature. -Charles Fortune, our humorist, delighted to observe these things, and -his irony found ready targets in Cologne, both among British officers -and German civilians, neither of whom he spared. I remember that I -was walking one day down Hohestrasse with young Harding, after the -proclamation had been issued (and enforced with numerous arrests and -fines by the A.P.M. and the military police) that all German civilians -were to salute British officers by doffing their hats in the streets. -The absurdity of it was so great that in a crowded street..like the -Hohestrasse the civilian people would have had to remain bareheaded, -owing to the constant passing of our officers. - -Fortune saluted Harding and myself not only with one hand but with two. -He wore his “heroic” face, wonderfully noble and mystical. - -“How great and glorious is the British Army!” he said. “How immense are -the power and majesty of the temporary lieutenant! For four years and -a half have we fought to crush militarism. Nine hundred thousand men of -ours have died explosive deaths in order to abolish the philosophy -of Zabernism--you remember!--the claim of the military caste to the -servility of civilian salutes. Two million men of ours are blind, -crippled, shell-shocked, as martyrs for democracy made free of Junkerdom -by the crushing of the Hun. Now, by a slight error in logic (the -beautiful inconsistency of our English character), we arrest, fine, or -imprison any German man or child who does not bare his head before a -little English subaltern from Peckham Rye or Tooting in a ‘Gor’blimy’ -cap! How great and good we are! How free from hypocrisy! How splendid -our victory for the little peoples of the earth!” - -Young Harding, who had been returning salutes solemnly and mechanically -to great numbers of Germans, flushed a little. - -“I suppose it’s necessary to enforce respect. All the same, it’s a -horrid bore.” - -Fortune wagged his hand behind his ear to an elderly German who took off -his bowler hat. The man stared at him in a frightened way, as though the -English officer had suddenly gone mad and might bite him. - -“Strange!” said Fortune. “Not yet have they been taught the beauty of -the Guards’ salute. That man ought to be put into a dark cell, with -bread and water, and torture from 9 a.m. till mid-day on Wednesdays and -Fridays.” - -Fortune was vastly entertained by the sight of British soldiers walking -about with German families in whose houses they were billeted. Some of -them were arm-inarm with German girls, a sergeant-major was carrying -a small flaxen-haired boy on whose sailor’s cap was the word -“_Vaterland_.” - -“Disgraceful!” said Fortune, looking sternly at Harding. “In spite of -all our atrocity tales, our propaganda of righteous hate, our training -of the young idea that a Hun must be killed at sight--‘the only good -German is a dead German,’ as you remember, Harding--these soldiers -of ours are fraternising with the enemy and flirting with the enemy’s -fair-haired daughters, and carrying infant Huns shoulder-high. Look at -that sergeant-major forgetting all my propaganda. Surely he ought to cut -the throat of that baby Hindenburg! My heart aches for Blear-eyed Bill, -the Butcher of the Boche. All his work undone. All his fury fizzled. -Sad! sad!” Harding looked profoundly uncomfortable at this sarcasm. He -was billeted with a German family who treated him as an honoured friend. -The mother, a dear old soul, as he reluctantly admitted, brought him an -early cup of tea in the morning, with his shaving-water. Three times he -had refused it, remembering his oath never to accept a favour from male -or female Hun. On the fourth time his will-power weakened under the old -lady’s anxious solicitations and his desire for the luxury of tea before -dressing. He said “_Danke schön_,” and afterwards reproached himself -bitterly for his feeble resistance. He was alarmed at his own change -of heart towards these people. It was impossible for him to draw -back solemnly or with pompous and aloof dignity when the old lady’s -grandchild, a little girl of six, waylaid him in the hall dropped a -curtsey in the pretty German style, and then ran forward to kiss his -hand and say, “_Guten Tag, Herr Offizier!_” - -He bought a box of chocolate for her in the Hohestrasse and then walked -with it irresolutely, tempted to throw it into the Rhine, or to give -it to a passing Tommy. Half-an-hour later he presented it to little -Elizabeth, who received it with a cry of delight, and, jumping on to -his knee, kissed him effusively on both cheeks. Young Harding adored -children, but felt as guilty at these German kisses as though he had -betrayed his country and his faith. - -One thing which acted in favour of the Germans was the lack of manners -displayed by some young English officers in the hotels, restaurants, -and shops. In all armies there are cads, and ours was not without them, -though they were rare. The conditions of our military occupation -with absolute authority over the civilian people provided a unique -opportunity for the caddish instincts of “half-baked” youth. They came -swaggering into Cologne determined to “put it across the Hun” and “to -stand no nonsense.” So they bullied frightened waiters, rapped their -sticks on shop-counters, insulted German shop-girls, and talked loudly -about “Hunnish behaviour” in restaurants where many Germans could hear -and understand. - -Harding, Fortune and I were in the Domhof Hotel when one such scene -occurred. A group of noisy subalterns were disputing the cost of their -meal and refusing to pay for the wine. - -“You stole all the wine in Lille,” shouted one lieutenant of ours. “I’m -damned if I’ll pay for wine in Cologne.” - -“I stole no wine in Lille, sir,” said the waiter politely. “I was never -there.” - -“Don’t you insult English officers,” said one of the other subalterns. -“We are here to tread on your necks.” - -Fortune looked at me and raised his eye-brows. - -“It isn’t a good imitation,” he said. “If they want to play the game of -frightfulness, they really ought to do better than that. They don’t even -make the right kind of face.” - -Harding spoke bitterly. - -“Cads!... Cads!... Somebody ought to put them under arrest.” - -“It doesn’t really impress the Germans,” said Fortune. “They know it’s -only make-believe. You see, the foolish boys are paying their bill. -Now, if I, or Blear-eyed Bill, were to do the Junker stunt, we should at -least look the real ogres.” - -He frowned horribly, puffed out his cheeks, and growled and grumbled -with an air of senile ferocity--to the great delight of a young German -waiter watching him from a corner of the room, and already aware that -Fortune was a humorist. - -The few cads among us caused a reaction in the minds of all men of -good manners, so that they took the part of the Germans. Even various -regulations and restrictions ordered by the military governor during -the first few months of our occupation were resented more by British -officers and men than by the Germans themselves. The opera was closed, -and British officers said, “What preposterous nonsense! How are the -poor devils going to earn their living, and how are we going to amuse -ourselves?” - -The wine-concerts and restaurants were ordered to shut down at ten -o’clock, and again the British Army of Occupation “groused” exceedingly -and said, “We thought this war had been fought for liberty. Why all this -petty tyranny?” Presently these places were allowed to stay open till -eleven, and all the way down the Hohestrasse, as eleven o’clock struck, -one saw groups of British officers and men, and French and American -officers, pouring out of a _Wein-stube, Kunstler Conzert or Bier-halle_, -with farewell greetings or promises of further rendezvous with laughing -German girls, who seemed to learn English by magic. - -“Disgraceful!” said young Harding, who was a married man with a pretty -wife in England for whom he yearned with a home-sickness which he -revealed to me boyishly when we became closer friends in this German -city. - -“Not disgraceful,” said the little American doctor, who had joined us -in Cologne, “but only the fulfilment of nature’s law, which makes man -desire woman. Allah is great!... But juxtaposition is greater.” - -Dr. Small was friends with all of us, and there was not one among our -crowd who had not an affection and admiration for this little man whose -honesty was transparent, and whose vital nervous energy was like a fresh -wind to any company in which he found himself. It was Wickham Brand, -however, who had captured the doctor’s heart most of all, and I think I -was his “second best.” Anyhow, it was to me that he revealed his opinion -of Brand, and some of his most intimate thoughts. - -“Wickham has the quality of greatness,” he said. “I don’t mean to say -he’s great now. Not at all. I think he’s fumbling and groping, not sure -of himself, afraid of his best instincts, thinking his worst may be -right. But one day he will straighten all that out and have a call as -loud as a trumpet. What I like is his moodiness and bad temper.” - -“Queer taste, doctor!” I remarked. “When old Brand is in the sulks -there’s nothing doing with him. He’s like a bear with a sore ear.” - -“Sure!” said Dr. Small. “That’s exactly it. He is biting his own sore -ear. I guess with him, though, it’s a sore heart. He keeps moping and -fretting and won’t let his wounds heal. That’s what makes him different -from most others, especially you English. You go through frightful -experiences and then forget them and say, ‘Funny old world, young -fellah! Come and have a drink.’ You see civilisation rocking like a boat -in a storm, but you say, in your English way, ‘Why worry?’... Wickham -worries. He wants to put things right, and make the world safer for the -next crowd. He thinks of the boys who will have to fight in the next -war--wants to save them from his agonies.” - -“Yes, he’s frightfully sensitive underneath his mask of ruggedness,” I -said. - -“And romantic,” said the doctor. - -“Romantic?” - -“Why, yes. That girl, Eileen O’Connor, churned up his heart all right. -Didn’t you see the worship in his eyes? It made me feel good.” - -I laughed at the little doctor, and accused him of romanticism. - -“Anyhow,” I said, more seriously. “Eileen O’Connor is not without -romance herself, and I don’t know what she wrote in that letter to Franz -von Kreuzenach, but I suspect she re-opened an episode which had best -be closed.... As for Brand, I think he’s asking for trouble of the same -kind. If he sees much of that girl Elsa I won’t answer for him. She’s -amazingly pretty, and full of charm from what Brand tells me.” - -“I guess he’ll be a darned fool if he fixes up with that girl,” growled -the doctor. - -“You’re inconsistent,” I said. “Are you shocked that Wickham Brand -should fall in love with a German girl?” - -“Not at all, sonny,” said Dr. Small. “As a biologist I know you can’t -interfere with natural selection, and a pretty girl is an alluring -creature, whether she speaks German or Icelandic. But this girl, Elsa -von Kreuzenach, is not up to a high standard of eugenics.” - -I was amused by the doctor’s scientific disapproval. - -“What’s wrong with her?” I asked. “And when did you meet her?” - -“Sonny,” said the doctor, “what do you think I’ve been doing all these -weeks in Cologne? Drinking coffee at the Domhof Hotel with the A.P.M. -and his soldier-policemen? Watching the dancing-girls every evening in -wine-rooms like this?” - -We sat in a _Wein-stube_ as we talked, for the sake of light and a -little music. It was typical of a score of others in Cologne, with -settees of oak divided from each other in “cosy corners” hung with -draperies of green and red silk; and little tables to which waiters -brought relays of Rhine wines in tall thin bottles for the thirstiness -of German civilians and British officers. At one end of the room was -a small stage, and an orchestra composed of a pianist who seemed to be -suffering from a mild form of shell-shock (judging from a convulsive -twitch), a young German-Jew, who played the fiddle squeakily, and a -thin, sad-faced girl behind a ‘cello. Every now and then a bald-headed -man in evening clothes mounted the stage and begged the attention of the -company for a dance by the well-known artist Fraulein So-and-so. From -behind a curtain near the wine-bar came a dancing-girl, in the usual -ballet dress and the usual fixed and senseless smile, who proceeded to -perform Pavlova effects on a stage two yards square, while the young Jew -fiddler flattened himself against the side curtain with a restricted use -of his bow, and the pianist with the shell-shock lurched sideways as he -played to avoid her floppy skirts, and the girl behind the ‘cello drew -deep chords with a look of misery. - -“These are pretty dull spots,” I said to the little doctor, “but -where have you been spending your time? And when did you meet Elsa von -Kreuzenach?” - -Dr. Small told me that he had been seeking knowledge in the only place -where he could study social health and social disease--hospitals, -work-shops, babies’ _crèches_, slum tenements. He was scornful of -English officers and correspondents who summed up the social state of -Germany after a stroll down the Hohestrasse, a gorge of _ersatz_ pastry -(“Filth” he said) in the tea-shops, and a dinner of four courses in a -big hotel on smuggled food at fantastic prices. - -“You might as well judge Germany by the guzzling swine in this place as -England by a party of profiteers at Brighton. The poor middle-classes -and the labourers stay indoors after their day’s job and do not exhibit -their misery in the public ways.” - -“Real misery?” I asked. “Hunger?” - -Dr. Small glowered at me through his goggles. - -“Come and see. Come and see the mothers who have no milk for their -babes, and the babes who are bulbousheaded, with rickets. Come and see -the tenement lodgings where working families sit round cabbage soup as -their chief meal, with bread that ties their entrails into knots but -gives ‘em a sense of fulness not enjoyed by those who have no bread. -Man, it’s awful. It tears at one’s heart. But you needn’t go into the -slums to find hunger--four years of under-nourishment which has weakened -growing girls so that they swoon at their work or fall asleep through -weakness in the tram cars. In many of the big houses where life looks so -comfortable, from which women come out in furs, looking so rich, these -German people have not enough to eat, and what they eat is manufactured -in the chemist’s shop and the _ersatz_ factories. I found that out from -that girl, Elsa von Kreuzenach.” - -“How?” I asked. - -“She is a nurse in a babies’ _crèche_, poor child. Showed me round -with a mother-look in her eyes, while all the scrofulous kiddies cried, -‘_Guten Tag! Guten Tag!_’ like the quacking of ducks. ‘After to-morrow,’ -she said, ‘there will be no more milk for them. What can we do for them -then, doctor? They will wither and die.’ Those were her words, and I saw -her sadness. I saw something else presently. I saw her sway a little, -and she fell like that girl Marthe on the doorstep at Lille. ‘For the -love of Mike!’ I said, and when she pulled round bullied her. - -“‘What did you have for breakfast?’ I asked. - -“‘_Ersatz_ coffee,’ she said, laughing, ‘and a bit of bread. A good -_fruhstuck_, doctor.’ - -“‘Good be hanged!’ I said. ‘What did you have for lunch?’ - -“‘Cabbage soup and _ein kleines brodchen_,’ she says. ‘After four years -one gets used to it.’ - -“‘What will you have for dinner?’ said I, not liking the look of things. - -“She laughed, as though she saw a funny joke. - -“‘Cabbage soup and turnips,’ she said, ‘and a regular feast.’ - -“‘I thought your father was a Baron,’ I remarked in my sarcastic way. - -“‘That’s true,’ she says, ‘and an honest man he is, and therefore poor. -It is only the profiteers who feed well in Germany. All through the war -they waxed fat on the flesh-and-blood of the men who fought and died. -Now they steal the food of the poor by bribing the peasants to sell -their produce at any price.’ _Schleichandlung_ is the word she used. -That means ‘smuggling.’ It also means hell’s torture, I hope, for -those who do it.... So there you are. If Wickham Brand marries Elsa von -Kreuze-nach, he marries a girl whose health has been undermined by -four years’ semi-starvation. What do you think their children will be? -Rickety, tuberculous, undersized, weak-framed. Wickham Brand deserves -better luck than that, sonny.” - -I roared with laughter at the little doctor, and told him he was looking -too far ahead, as far as Brand and the German girl were concerned. This -made him angry, in his humorous way, and he told me that those who don’t -look ahead fail to see the trouble under their nose until they fall over -it. - -We left the _Wein-stube_ through a fog of smoke. Another dancing girl -was on the tiny stage, waving her arms and legs. An English officer, -slightly fuddled, was writing a cheque for his bill and persuading the -German manager to accept it. Two young French officers were staring at -the dancing-girl with hostile eyes. Five young Germans were noisy round -six tall bottles of _Liebfraumilch_. The doctor and I walked down to -the bank of the Rhine below the Hohenzollern bridge. Our sentries were -there, guarding heavy guns which thrust their snouts up from tarpaulin -covers. - -Two German women passed, with dragging footsteps, and one said wearily, -“_Ach, lieber Gott!_” - -The doctor was silent for some time after his long monologue. He stared -across the Rhine, on whose black surface lights glimmered with a milky -radiance. Presently he spoke again, and I remember his words, which -were, in a way, prophetic. - -“These German people are broken. They _had_ to be broken. They are -punished. They _had_ to be punished. Because they obeyed the call of -their leaders, which was to evil, their power has been overthrown and -their race made weak. You and I, an Englishman, an American, stand here, -by right of victory, overlooking this river which has flowed through -two thousand years of German history. It has seen the building-up of the -German people, their industry, their genius, their racial consciousness. -It has been in the rhythm of their poetry and has made the melody of -their songs. On its banks lived the little people of German fairy-tales, -and the heroes of their legends. Now there are English guns ready to -fire across the water and English, French and American soldiers pacing -this road along the Rhine, as victors and guards of victory. What hurt -to the pride of this people! What a downfall! We must be glad of that -because the German challenge to the world was not to be endured by free -peoples. That is true, and nothing can ever alter its truth or make it -seem false. I stand firm by that faith. But I see also, what before -I did not see, that many of these Germans were but slaves of a system -which they could not change, and spellbound by old traditions, old -watch-words, belonging to the soul of their race, so that when they were -spoken they had to offer their lives in sacrifice. High powers above -them arranged their destiny, and the manner and measure of their -sacrifice, and they had no voice, or strength, or knowledge, to -protest--these German peasants, these boys who fought, these women and -children who suffered and starved. Now it is they, the ignorant and -the innocent, who must go on suffering, paying in peace for what their -rulers did in war. Men will say that is the Justice of God. I can see -no loving God’s work in the starvation of babes, nor in the weakening of -women so that mothers have no milk. I see only the cruelty of men. It is -certain now that, having won the war, we must be merciful in peace. We -must relieve the blockade, which is still starving these people. We must -not go out for vengeance but rather to rescue. For this war has involved -the civilian populations of Europe and is not limited to armies. A -treaty of peace will be with Famine and Plague rather than with defeated -generals and humiliated diplomats. If we make a military peace, without -regard to the agonies of peoples, there will be a tragic price to pay -by victors as well as by vanquished. For the victors are weak too. Their -strength was nearly spent. They--except my people--were panting to -the last gasp when their enemy fell at last. They need a peace of -reconciliation for their own sakes, because no new frontiers may save -them from sharing the ruin of those they destroy, nor the disease of -those they starve. America alone comes out of the war strong and rich. -For that reason we have the power to shape the destiny of the human -race, and to heal, as far as may be, the wounds of the world. It is our -chance in history. The most supreme chance that any race has had since -the beginning of the world. All nations are looking to President Wilson -to help them out of the abyss and to make a peace which shall lead the -people out of the dark jungle of Europe. My God!... If Wilson will be -noble and wise and strong, he may alter the face of the world, and win -such victory as no mortal leader ever gained. If not--if not--there will -be anguish unspeakable, and a worse darkness, and a welter of anarchy -out of whose madness new wars will be bred, until civilisation drops -back to savagery, or disappears. _I am afraid!_” - -He spoke those last words with a terrible thrill in his rather high, -harsh voice, and I, too, standing there in the darkness, by the Rhine, -had a sense of mighty powers at work with the destiny of many peoples, -and of risks and chances and hatreds and stupidities thwarting the -purpose of noble minds and humble hearts after this four years’ -massacre.... And I was afraid. - - - - -VI - - -Symptoms of restless impatience which had appeared almost as soon as -the signing of the Armistice began to grow with intensity among all -soldiers who had been long in the zone of war. Their patience, so -enduring through the bad years, broke at last. They wanted to go home, -desperately. They wanted to get back to civil life, in civil clothes. -With the Armistice all meaning had gone out of their khaki uniform, -out of military discipline, out of distinctions of rank, and out of the -whole system of their soldiers’ life. They had done the dirty job, they -had faced all its risks, and they had gained what glory there might be -in human courage. Now they desired to get back to their own people, and -their own places, and the old ways of life and liberty. - -They remembered the terms of their service--these amateurs who had -answered the call in early days. “For the duration of the war.” Well, -the war was finished. There was to be no more fighting--and the wife -wanted her man, and the mother her son. “Demobilisation” became the word -of hope, and many men were sullen at the delays which kept them in -exile and in servitude. The men sent deputations to their officers. The -officers pulled wires for themselves which tinkled little bells as far -away as the War Office, Whitehall, if they had a strong enough pull. -One by one, friends of mine slipped away after a word of farewell and a -cheerful grin. - -“Demobbed!... Back to civvies!... Home!” - -Harding was one of those who agonised for civil liberty and release from -military restraint, and the reason of it lay in his pocket-book, where -there was the photograph of a pretty girl--his wife. - -We had become good friends, and he confided to me many things about his -state of mind with a simplicity and a sincerity which made me like -him. I never met a man more English in all his characteristics, or more -typical of the quality which belongs to our strength and our weakness. -As a Harrow boy his manners were perfect, according to the English -code--quiet, unemotional, easy, unobtrusively thoughtful of other -people’s comfort in little things. According to the French code, -he would have been considered cold, arrogant, conceited and stupid. -Certainly he had that touch of arrogance which is in all Englishmen of -the old tradition. All his education and environment had taught him to -believe that English civilisation--especially in the hunting set--was -perfect and supreme. He had a pity rather than contempt for those -unlucky enough to be born Frenchmen, Italians, or of any other race. -He was not stupid by nature--on the contrary, he had sound judgment on -matters within his range of knowledge and a rapid grasp of detail, -but his vision was shut in by those frontiers of thought which limit -public-school life in England and certain sets at Oxford who do not -break free, and do not wish to break free, from the conventional formula -of “good form,” which regulates every movement of their brain as well as -every action of their lives. It is in its way a noble formula, and makes -for aristocracy. My country, right or wrong; loyalty to King and State; -the divine right of the British race to rule uncivilised peoples for -their own good; the undoubted fact that an English gentleman is the -noblest work of God; the duties of “_noblesse oblige_,” in courage, in -sacrifice, in good maimers, and in playing the game, whatever the game -may be, in a sporting spirit. - -When I was in Harding’s company I knew that it was ridiculous to discuss -any subject which lay beyond that formula. It was impossible to suggest -that England had ever been guilty of the slightest injustice, a touch of -greed, or a tinge of hypocrisy, or something less than wisdom. - -To him that was just traitor’s talk. A plea for the better understanding -of Ireland, for a generous measure of “self-determination” would -have roused him to a hot outburst of anger. The Irish to him were all -treacherous, disloyal blackguards, and the only remedy of the Irish -problem was, he thought, martial law and machine-gun demonstrations, -stern and, if need be, terrible. I did not argue with him, or chaff him -as some of his comrades did, and keeping within the prescribed limits of -conversation set by his code, we got on together admirably. Once only -in those days on the Rhine did Harding show an emotion which would have -been condemned by his code. It was due, no doubt, to that nervous -fever which made some wag change the word “demobilisation” into -“demoralisation.” - -He had a room in the Domhof Hotel, and invited me to drink a whiskey -with him there one evening. When I sat on the edge of the bed while he -dispensed the drink, I noticed on his dressing-table a large photograph -of a girl in evening dress--a wonderfully pretty girl, I thought. - -He caught my glance, and after a moment’s hesitation and a visible -blush, said: “My wife.... We were married before I came out, two years -ago exactly.” - -He put his hand into the breast-pocket of his tunic and pulling out a -pocket-book, opened it with a snap, and showed me another photograph. - -“That’s a better one of her.” - -I congratulated him, but without listening to my words he asked me -rather awkwardly whether I could pull any strings for him to get -“demobbed.” - -“It’s all a question of ‘pull,’” he said, “and I’m not good at that kind -of thing. But I want to get home.” - -“Everybody does,” I said. - -“Yes, I know, and of course I want to play the game, and all that. But -the fact is, my wife--she’s only a kid, you know--is rather hipped with -my long absence. She’s been trying to keep herself merry and bright, and -all that, with the usual kind of war-work. You know--charity bazaars, -fancy-dress balls for the wounded, Red Cross work, and all that. Very -plucky, too. But the fact is, some of her letters lately have been -rather--well--rather below par--you know--rather chippy and all that. -The fact is, old man, she’s been too much alone, and anything you can do -in the way of a pull at the War Office----” - -I told him bluntly that I had as much influence at the War Office as the -charwoman in Room M.I. 8, or any other old room--not so much--and he was -damped, and apologised for troubling me. However, I promised to write -to the one High Bird with whom I had a slight acquaintance, and this -cheered him up considerably. - -I stayed chatting for some time--the usual small-talk--and it was only -when I said good-night that he broached another subject which interested -me a good deal. - -“I’m getting a bit worried about Wickham Brand,” he remarked in a casual -kind of way. - -“How’s that?” - -I gathered from Harding’s vague, disjointed sentences that Brand was -falling into the clutches of a German hussy. He had seen them together -at the Opera--they had met as if by accident--and one evening he had -seen them together down by the Rhine outside Cologne. He was bound to -admit the girl was remarkably good-looking, and that made her all -the more dangerous. He hated to mention this, as it seemed like -scandal-mongering about “one of the best,” but he was frightfully -disturbed by the thought that Brand, of all men, should fall a victim -to the wiles of a “lady Hun.” He knew Brand’s people at home--Sir Amyas -Brand, the Member of Parliament, and his mother, who was a daughter of -the Harringtons. - -They would be enormously “hipped” if Wickham were to do anything -foolish. It was only because he knew that I was Wickham’s best chum that -he told me these things, in the strictest confidence. A word of warning -from me might save old Brand from getting into a horrible mess--“and all -that.” - -I pooh-poohed Harding’s fears, but when I left him to go to my own -billet I pondered over his words, and knew that there was truth in them. - -There was no doubt to my mind that Brand was in love with Elsa von -Kreuzenach. At least, he was going through some queer emotional phase -connected with her entry into his life, and he was not happy about it, -though it excited him. The very day after Harding spoke to me on the -subject I was, involuntarily, a spy upon Brand and Fraülein Elsa on a -journey when we were fellow-travellers, though they were utterly unaware -of my presence. It was in one of the long electric trams which go -without a stop from Cologne to Bonn. I did not see Brand until I had -taken my seat in the small first-class smoking car. Several middle-class -Germans were there, and I was wedged between two of them in a corner. -Brand and a girl, whom I guessed to be Elsa von Kreuzenach, were on -the opposite seat, but farthest away from me and screened a little by -a German lady with a large feathered hat. If Brand had looked round the -compartment he would have seen me at once, and I waited to nod to -him, but never once did he glance my way, but turned slightly sideways -towards the girl, so that I only saw his profile. Her face was, in -the same way, turned a little to him, and I could see every shade of -expression which revealed her moods as she talked, and the varying -light in her eyes. She was certainly a pretty thing, exquisite, even, in -delicacy of colour and fineness of feature, with that “spun-gold” hair -of hers; though I thought (remembering Dr. Small’s words) that she had a -worn and fragile look which robbed her of the final touch of beauty. For -some time they exchanged only a few words now and then, which I could -not hear, and I was reading a book when I heard Brand say in his clear, -rather harsh voice: “Will your people be anxious about you?” - -The girl answered in a low voice. I glanced up and saw that she was -smiling, not at Brand, but at the countryside which seemed to travel -past us as the tram went on its way. It was the smile of a girl to whom -life meant something good just then. - -Brand spoke again. - -“I should hate to let your mother think that I have been disloyal to her -confidence. Don’t let this friendship of ours be spoilt by secrecy. I am -not afraid of it!” - -He laughed in a way that was strange to me. There was a note of joy in -it. It was a boy’s laugh, and Brand had gone beyond boyhood in the war. -I saw one or two of the Germans look up at him curiously, and then stare -at the girl, not in a friendly way. She was unconscious of their gaze, -though a wave of colour swept her face. For a second she laid her hand -on Brand’s brown fist, and it was a quick caress. - -“Our friendship is good!” she said. - -She spoke these words very softly, in almost a whisper, but I heard them -in spite of the rattle of the tram-car and the gutteral argument of two -Germans next to me. Those were the only words I heard her say on that -journey to Bonn, and after that Brand talked very little, and then only -commonplace remarks about the time and the scenery. But what I had heard -was revealing, and I was disturbed, for Brand’s sake. - -His eyes met mine as I passed out of the car, but they were unseeing -eyes. He stared straight through me to some vision beyond. He gave his -hand to Elsa von Kreuzenach, and they walked slowly up from the station -and then went inside the cathedral. I had business in Bonn with officers -at our headquarters in the hotel “Der Goldene Stern.” Afterwards I had -lunch with them, and then, with one, went to Beethoven’s house--a little -shrine in which the spirit of the master still lives, with his old -instruments, his manuscript sheets of music, and many relics of his life -and work. - -It was at about four o’clock in the afternoon that I saw Brand and the -German girl again. There was a beautiful dusk in the gardens beyond the -University, with a ruddy glow through the trees when the sun went down, -and then a purple twilight. Some German boys were playing leapfrog -there, watched by British soldiers, and townsfolk passed on their way -home. I strolled the length of the gardens, and at the end which is -near the old front of the University buildings I saw Brand and Elsa von -Kreuzenach together on a wooden seat. It was almost dark where they sat -under the trees, but I knew Brand by his figure and by the tilt of -his field-cap, and the girl by the white fur round her neck. They were -holding hands like lovers in a London park, and when I passed them I -heard Brand speak. - -“I suppose this was meant to be. Fate leads us...” - -When I went back to Cologne by tram that evening I wondered whether -Brand would confide his secret to me. We had been so much together -during the last phase of the war and had talked so much in intimate -friendship that I guessed he would come one day and let me know this new -adventure of his soul. - -Several weeks passed and he said no word of this,-although we went for -walks together and sat smoking sometimes in _cafés_ after dinner. It had -always been his habit to drop into deep silences, and now they lasted -longer than before. Now and then, however, he would be talkative, -argumentative, and passionate. At times there was a new light in -his eyes, as though lit by some inward fire. And he would smile -unconsciously as he blew out clouds of smoke, but more often he looked -worried, nervous, and irritable, as though passing through some new -mental crisis. - -He spoke a good deal about German psychology and the German point of -view, illustrating his remarks sometimes by references to conversations -with Franz von Kreuzenach, with whom he often talked. He had come to -the conclusion that it was quite hopeless to convince even the -broadest-minded Germans that they were guilty of the war. They -admitted freely enough that their military party had used the Serbian -assassination and Austrian fury as the fuel for starting the blaze -in Europe. Even then they believed that the Chancellor and the civil -Ministry of State had struggled for peace until the Russian movements of -troops put the military party into the saddle so that they might ride to -hell. But in any case it was, Brand said, an unalterable conviction of -most Germans that sooner or later the war had been bound to come, as -they were surrounded by a ring of enemies conspiring to thwart their -free development and to overthrow their power. They attacked first as -a means of self-defence. It was an article of faith with them that they -had fought a defensive warfare from the start. - -“That is sheer lunacy!” I said. Brand laughed, and agreed. - -“Idiotic in the face of plain facts, but that only shows how strong is -the belief of people in their own righteousness. I suppose even now most -English people think the Boer War was just and holy. Certainly at the -time we stoned all who thought otherwise. Yet the verdict of the whole -world was against us. They regarded that war as the brutal aggression of -a great power upon a small and heroic people.” - -“But surely,” I said, “a man like Franz von Kreu-zenach admits -the brutality of Germany in Belgium--the shooting of. priests and -civilians--the forced labour of girls--the smashing of machinery--and -all the rest of it?” - -Brand said that Franz von Kreuzenach deplored the “severity” of German -acts, but blamed the code of war which justified such acts. It was not -his view that Germans had behaved with exceptional brutality, but that -war itself is a brutal way of argument. “We must abolish war,” he says, -“not pretend to make it kind.” As far as that goes, I agree with him. - -“How about poison gas, the _Lusitania_, the sinking of hospital ships, -submarine warfare?” - -Brand shrugged his shoulders. - -“The German answer is always the same. War is war, and they were hard -pressed by our superiority in material, man-power and sea-power. We were -starving them to death with our blockade. They saw their children dying -and diseased, their old people carried to the grave, their men weakened. -They had to break through somehow, anyhow, to save their race. I don’t -think we should have stopped at much if England had been ringed round -with enemy ships and the kids were starving in Mayfair and Maida Vale, -and every town and hamlet.” - -He laughed, with a shrug of his shoulders, as he lit his pipe for about -the fifteenth time. - -“Argument is no good,” he said. “I’ve argued into the early hours of the -morning with that fellow Franz von Kreuzenach, who is a fine fellow and -the whitest man I’ve met in Germany. Nothing will convince him that his -people were, more guilty than ourselves. Perhaps he’s right. History -will decide. Now we must start afresh--wipe out the black past, confess -that though the Germans started the war we were all possessed by the -devil--and exorcise ourselves. I believe the German people are ready -to turn over a new leaf and start a fresh chapter of history if we will -help them and give them a chance. They have an immense hope that England -and America will not push them over into the bottomless abyss, now that -they have fulfilled Wilson’s demand to get rid of their old rulers and -fall into line with the world’s democracy. If that hope fails them they -will fall back to the old philosophy of hatred, with vengeance as its -goal--and the damned thing will happen again in fifteen--twenty--thirty -years.” - -Brand made one remark that evening which referred, I fancy, to his love -affair with Elsa von Kreuzenach. - -“There is so much folly in the crowd that one despairs of reaching a -higher stage of civilisation. I am falling back on individualism. The -individual must follow his own ideals, strive for his own happiness, -find friendship and a little love where he can, and stand apart from -world problems, racial rivalries, international prejudices, as far as -he may without being drawn into the vortex. Nothing that he can do -will alter human destiny, or the forces of evolution, or the cycles of -history, which make all striving futile. Let him get out of the rain and -comfort himself with any human warmth he can find. Two souls in contact -are company enough.” - -“Sometimes,” I said, “mob passion tears them asunder and protests -against their union with stones or outlaw judgment. Taboo will exist for -ever in human society, and it is devilish unpleasant for individuals who -violate the rules.” - -“It needs courage,” said my friend. “The risk is sometimes worth -taking.” - - - - -VII - - -Brand decided to take the risk, and though he asked my advice -beforehand, as a matter of friendship, I knew my warnings were useless. -It was about a month after that train journey to Bonn that he came into -my room at the Domhof, looking rather pale but with a kind of glitter in -his eyes. - -“I may as well tell you,” he said abruptly, “that I am going to marry a -German girl.” - -“Elsa von Kreuzenach?” - -“Yes. How did you know?” - -“Just a guess.” - -“It’s against her parents’ wish,” he said, “to say nothing of my -parents, who think I have gone mad. Elsa and I will have to play a lone -hand.” - -“‘Lone’ is not the word,” I suggested. “You are breaking that taboo -we talked of. You will be shunned by every friend you have in the -world--except one or two queer people like myself”--(here he said, -“Thanks,” and grinned rather gratefully)--“and both you and she will be -pariahs in England, Germany, and anywhere on the wide earth where there -are English, Germans, French, Americans and others who fought the war. I -suppose you know that?” - -“Perfectly,” he answered gravely. - -I told him that I was amazed that he of all men should fall in love with -a German girl--he who had seen all the abomination of the war, and had -come out to it with a flaming idealism. To that he answered savagely: -“Flaming idealism be blowed! I came out with blood-lust in my heart, and -having killed until I was sick of killing--German boys who popped their -heads over the parapet--I saw that the whole scheme of things was wrong, -and that the grey men had no more power of escape than the brown men. We -had to go on killing each other because we were both under the same -law, thrust upon us by those directing the infernal machinery of -world-politics. But that’s not the point, and it’s old and stale, -anyhow.” - -“The point is,” I said, “that you will be looked upon as a traitor by -many of your best pals, that you will smash your father and mother, and -that this girl Elsa and you will be profoundly miserable.” - -“We shall be enormously and immensely happy,” he answered, “and that -outweighs everything.” - -He told me that he needed happiness. For more than four years he had -suffered agony of mind in the filth and mud of war. He craved for -beauty, and Elsa fulfilled his ideal. He had been a lonely devil, -and Elsa had offered him the only cure for the worst disease in life, -intimate and eternal love. - -Something prompted me to say words which I deeply regretted as soon as -they were spoken. It was the utterance of a subconscious thought. - -“There is a girl, not German, who might have cured your loneliness. You -and Eileen O’Connor would have made good mates.” - -For some reason he was hit rather hard by that remark. He became -exceedingly pale, and for a moment or two did not answer me. I thought -he would blurt out some angry reply, damning my impudence, but when he -spoke it was in a grave, gentle way which seemed to me more puzzling. - -“Eileen would make a fine wife for any man she liked. But she’s above -most of us.” - -We stayed up talking nearly all that night, and Wickham Brand -described one scene within his recent experiences which must have been -sensational. It was when he announced to the family von Kreuzenach that -he loved Elsa and desired her hand in marriage. - -Brand’s sense of humour came back to him when he told me of this -episode, and he laughed now at the frightfulness of his ordeal. It was -he who had insisted upon announcing the news to Elsa’s parents, to avoid -any charge of dishonesty. Elsa herself was in favour of hiding their -love until peace was declared, when, perhaps, the passionate hostility -of her parents to England might be abated. For Brand’s sake, also, she -thought it would be better. But she yielded to his argument that secrecy -might spoil the beauty of their friendship, and give it an ugly taint. - -“We’ll go through with it straight from the start,” he had cried. - -Elsa’s answer was quick and glad. - -“I have no fear now of anything in the world except the loss of you!” - -Franz von Kreuzenach was the first to know, and Elsa told him. He seemed -stunned with surprise, and then immensely glad, as he took his sister in -his arms and kissed her. - -“Your marriage with an English officer,” he said, “will be the symbol of -reconciliation between England and Germany.” - -After that he remembered his father and mother, and was a coward at -the thought of their hostility. The idea of telling his father, as Elsa -asked him to do, put him into what Brand called “the bluest of blue -funk.” He had the German reverence for parental authority, and though he -went as far as the door-handle of his father’s study he retreated, and -said in a boyish way, speaking in English, as usual, with Brand and his -sister: “I haven’t the pluck! I would rather face shell-fire than my -father’s wrath.” - -It was Brand who “went over the top.” - -He made his announcement formally, in the drawingroom after dinner, in -the curiously casual way which proved him a true Englishman. He cleared -his throat (he told me, grinning at his own mannerism), and during a -gap in the conversation said to the General: “By the way, sir, I have -something rather special to mention to-night.” - -“_Bitte?_” said the old General, with his hard, deliberate courtesy. - -“Your daughter and I,” said Brand, “wish to be married as soon as -possible. I have the honour to ask your consent.” - -Brand told me of the awful silence which followed his statement. It -seemed interminable. Franz von Kreuze-nach, who was present, was as -white as though he had been condemned to death by court-martial. Elsa -was speechless, but came over to Brand’s side and held his hand. Her -mother had the appearance of a lady startled by the sudden appearance of -a poisonous snake. The General sat back in his chair, grasping its arms -and gasping for breath as though Brand had hit him in the stomach. - -It was the mother who spoke first, and ignoring Brand completely, she -addressed her daughter harshly. - -“You are mad, Elsa!” - -“Yes, mother,” said the girl. “I am mad with joy.” - -“This English officer insults us intolerably,” said the mother, still -ignoring Brand by any glance. “We were forced to receive him into our -house. At least he might have behaved with decency and respect.” - -“Mother,” said Elsa, “this gentleman has given me the great honour of -his love.” - -“To accept it,” said the lady, “would be a dishonour so dreadful for a -good German girl that I refuse to believe it possible.” - -“It is true, mother, and I am wonderfully happy.” - -Elsa went over to her mother, sinking down on her knees, and kissing -the lady’s hand. But Frau von Kreu-zenach withdrew her hand quickly, and -then rose from her chair and stood behind her husband, with one hand on -his shoulder. - -The old man had found his means of speech at last. - -He spoke in a low, stern voice to his daughter. Brand was ignored by him -as by the mother. They did not recognise his presence. - -“My daughter,” he said (if Brand remembered his words) “the German -people have been brought to ruin and humiliated by one nation in Europe -who was jealous of our power and genius. That nation was England, our -treacherous, hypocritical enemy. Without England, France would have been -smashed. Without England, our Emperor would have prevailed over all his -enemies. Without the English blockade we should not have been weakened -by hunger, deprived of the raw material necessary to victory, starved so -that our children died and our will to win was sapped. They were English -soldiers who killed my dear son Heinrich, and your brother. The flower -of German manhood was slain by the English in Flanders and on the -Somme.” - -The General spoke very quietly, with an intensity of effort to be calm. -But suddenly his voice rose, said Brand, to a kind of harsh shout. - -“Any German girl who permits herself to love an Englishman is a -traitorous hussy. I would have her stripped and flogged. The curse of -our old German God shall follow her.” - -Another silence, in which there was no sound except the noisy breathing -of the old man, was broken by the hard voice of Frau von Kreuzenach. - -“Your father has spoken, Elsa. There is no more to say.” - -Elsa had become very pale, but she was smiling at Brand, he told me, and -still held his hand in a tight grip. - -“There is something more to say, my dear father and mother,” she -answered. “It is that I love Captain Brand, and that I will follow him -anywhere in the world if he will take me. For love is stronger than -hate, and above all nationality.” - -It was Franz von Kreuzenach who spoke now. He was standing at the table, -facing his father, and it was to his father that he talked. He said that -Elsa was right about love. In spite of the war, the souls of men and -women were not separated by racial boundaries. When two souls touched -and mingled, no hatred of peoples, no patriotic passion, could -intervene. Elsa’s love for an English gentleman was but a symbol of the -peace that was coming, when all countries would be united in a Society -of Nations with equal rights and equal duties, and a common brotherhood. -They saw in the streets of Cologne that there was no natural, inevitable -hatred between English and Germans. The Army of Occupation had proved -itself to be an instrument of goodwill between those who had tried -to kill each other during four years of slaughter. Captain Brand had -behaved with the most charming courtesy and chivalry, according to the -traditions of an English gentleman, and he, Franz von Kreuzenach, was -glad and honoured because this officer desired to take Elsa for his -wife. Their marriage would be a consecration of the new peace. - -The father listened to him silently, except for that hard noise of -breathing. When his son uttered those last words, the old man leaned -forward in his chair, and his eyes glittered. - -“Get out of my house, _Schweinhund!_ Do not come near me again, or I -will denounce you as a traitor and shoot you like a dog.” - -He turned to Elsa with outstretched hand. - -“Go up to bed, girl. If you were younger I would flog you with my -hunting-whip.” - -For the first time he spoke to Brand, controlling his rage with a -convulsive effort. - -“I have not the power to evict you from the house. For the time being -the German people of the Rhineland are under hostile orders. Perhaps you -will find another billet more to your convenience, and more agreeable to -myself.” - -“To-night, sir,” said Brand, and he told me that he admired the old -man’s self-control and his studied dignity. - -Elsa still clasped his hand, and before her family he kissed her. - -“With your leave, or without leave,” he said, “your daughter and I will -be man and wife, for you have no right to stand between our love.” - -He bowed and left the room, and, in an hour, the house. - -Franz von Kreuzenach came into his room before he left, and wrung his -hand. - -“I must go, too,” he said. “My father is very much enraged with me. It -is the break between the young and the old--the new conflict, as we were -saying one day.” - -He was near weeping, and Brand apologised for being the cause of so much -trouble. - -In the hall Elsa came to Brand as the orderly carried out his bags. - -“To-morrow,” she said, “we will meet at Elizabeth von Detmold’s--my true -friend.” - -Her eyes were wet with tears, but she was smiling, and there was, said -Brand, a fine courage shining in her face. - -She put her hands on Brand’s shoulders and kissed him, to the deep -astonishment and embarrassment of the orderly, who stood by. It was from -this man, Brock, that the news of Brand’s “entanglement” spread, -through other orderlies, to officers of his mess, as he knew by the cold -shoulder that some of them turned to him. - - - - -VIII. - - -I met Elsa and Franz von Kreuzenach at the house of Elizabeth von -Detmold in the Hohenzollernring, which became a meeting-place for Brand -and the girl to whom he was now betrothed. Dr. Small and I went round -there to tea at Brand’s invitation, and I spent several evenings there -owing to the friendship of Elizabeth von Detmold, who seemed to like my -company. That lady was in many ways remarkable, and I am bound to say -that in spite of my repugnance to many qualities of the German character -I found her charming. The tragedy of the war had hit her with an -almost particular malignancy. Married in 1914 to a young officer of the -Prussian Guard, she was widowed at the first battle of Ypres. Her three -brothers had been killed in 1915, ‘16 and ‘17. Both her parents had died -during the war, owing to its accumulating horror. At twenty-six years of -age she was left alone in her big house with hardly enough money for its -upkeep, and not enough to supplement the rigid war rations which were -barely sufficient for life. I suppose there were thousands of young -women in Germany--hundreds of thousands--who had the same cause for -sorrow (we do not realise how German families were massacred in that -blood-bath of war, so that even French and British losses pale in -tragedy before their piled dead), but there were few, I am sure, who -faced their grief with such high courage and such unembittered charity. -Like Elsa von Kreuzenach, she devoted her days to suffering childhood in -the _crèches_ and feeding-centres which she had helped to organise, and -she spent many of her evenings in working-women’s clubs, and sometimes -in working-men’s clubs, where she read and lectured to them on social -problems. The war had made her an ardent pacifist, and, to some -extent, a revolutionary of the Liebknecht school. She saw no hope for -civilisation so long as the junker caste remained in Europe, and the -philosophy of militarism, which she believed stood fast not only -in Germany but in France and England, and other nations. She had a -passionate belief, like many other German people at that time, in -President Wilson and his League of Nations, and put all her hopes in the -United States as the one power in the world who could make a peace of -reconciliation and establish a new brotherhood of peoples. After that -she looked to a social revolution throughout the world by which the -working classes should obtain full control of their own destiny and -labour. - -I found it strange to hear that patrician girl, for she was one of -the aristocratic caste, with an elegance that came from long breeding, -adopting the extreme views of revolutionary socialism, not as a pretty -intellectual theory, but with a pasisonate courage that might lead her -to prison or to death in the conflict between the old powers and the -new. - -To Elsa von Kreuzenach she behaved in a protective and mothering way, -and it seemed to me that “Brand’s girl,” as Dr. Small called her, was -the spiritual child of this stronger and more vital character. Elsa, -was, I fancy, timid of those political and pacifist ideas which -Elizabeth von Detmold stated with such frank audacity. She cherished -the spirit of the human charity which gave them their motive power, -but shrank from the thought of the social strife and change which must -precede them. Yet there was nothing doll-like in her character. There -were moments when I saw her face illumined by a kind of mediaeval -mysticism which was the light of a spirit revealed perhaps by the -physical casket which held it, insecurely. Truly she was as pretty and -delicate as a piece of Dresden china, but for Brand’s sake I did not -like the fragile look which hinted at a quick fading of her flower-like -beauty. Her adoration for Brand was, in my opinion, rather pitiful. It -was very German, too, in its meek reverence, as of a mediaeval maid -to knighthood. I prefer the way of French womanhood, convinced of -intellectual equality with men, and with their abiding sense of humour; -or the arrogance of the English girl, who makes her lover prove his -mettle by quiet obedience. Elsa followed Brand with her eyes wherever -he moved, touched his hard, tanned hand with little secret caresses, -and whenever he spoke her eyes shone with gladness at the sound of his -voice. I liked her better when she was talking to our little doctor or -to myself, and, therefore, not absorbed in sentiment. At these times she -was frank and vivacious, and, indeed, had an English way with her which -no doubt she had learnt in her Brighton school. - -Brand interested me intensely at these times. Sometimes I found myself -doubting whether he was really so much in love with his German girl as -he imagined himself to be. I noticed that he was embarrassed by Elsa’s -public demonstrations of love--that way she had of touching his hand, -and another trick of leaning her head against his shoulder. As a typical -Englishman, in some parts of his brain at least, he shrank from exposing -his affection. It seemed to me also that he was more interested in -political and psychological problems than in the by-play of love’s -glances and revealings. He argued long and deeply with Elizabeth von -Detmold on the philosophy of Karl Marx, the anarchist movement in -Berlin, and on the possibility of a Rhineland republic, which was then -being advocated by a party in Cologne and Mainz whose watchword was -“_Los von Berlin!_” and freedom from Prussian domination for the Rhine -provinces. Even with Elsa he led the conversation to discussions about -German mentality, the system of German education, and the possible -terms of peace. Twice at least, when I was present, he differed with -her rather bluntly--a little brutally, I thought--about the German -administration of Belgium. - -“Our people did no more than was allowed by the necessities of war,” - said Elsa. “It was stern and tragic, but not more barbarous than what -other nations would have done.” - -“It was horrible, bloody, and unjustified,” said Brand. - -“All war,” said Elizabeth von Detmold, “is bloody and unjustified. -Directly war is declared the moral law is abrogated. It is simply the -reign of devildom. Why pretend otherwise--or weaken the devilish logic -by a few inconsistencies of sentiment?” - -Brand’s answer to Elsa was not exactly lover-like. I saw the colour fade -from her face at the harshness of his answer, but she leaned her head -against his body (she was sitting by his side on a low stool), and was -silent until her friend Elizabeth had spoken. Then she laughed, bravely, -I thought. - -“We differ in expression, but we all agree. What Wickham thinks is my -thought. I hate to remember how Belgium suffered.” - -Brand was utterly unconscious of his harsh way of speech and of his -unconcealed acknowledgment of Elizabeth von Detmold’s intellectual -superiority in her own drawing-room, so that when she spoke his interest -was directed from Elsa to this lady. - -“Daddy” Small was also immensely impressed by Frau von Detmold’s -character, and he confessed to me that he made notes of her conversation -every time he left her house. - -“That woman,” he said, “will probably be a martyr for civilisation. I -find myself so cussedly in agreement with her that when I go back to New -York I shall probably hang a red flag out of my window and lose all my -respectable patients. She has the vision of the future.” - -“What about Brand and Elsa?” I asked, dragging him down to -personalities. - -He put his arm through mine as we walked down the Hohestrasse. - -“Brand,” he said, in his shrewd way, “is combining martyrdom with -romance--an unsafe combination. The pretty Elsa has lighted up his -romantic heart because of her adoration and her feminine sentiment. -I don’t blame him. At his age--after four years of war and exile--her -gold-spun hair would have woven a web round my heart. Youth is youth, -and don’t you forget it, my lad!” - -“Where does the martyrdom come in?” I asked. - -The little doctor blinked through his horn spectacles. - -“Don’t you see it? Brand has been working out new ideals of life. After -killing a good many German boys, as sniper and chief assassin of the XI. -Corps, he wants to marry a German girl as a proclamation to the -world that he--Wickham Brand--has done with hatred and is out for the -brotherhood of man and the breaking down of the old frontiers. For -that ideal he is going to sacrifice his reputation and make a martyr of -himself--not forgetting that romance is pleasant and Elsa von Kreuzenach -as pretty as a peach! Bless his heart, I admire his courage and his -boyishness.” - -Any doubt I had about the reality of Brand’s passion for Elsa was at -least partly dispelled when he told me, a few nights later, of a tragic -thing that had happened to both of them. - -He came into my room at the “Domhof” as though he had just seen a ghost. -And, indeed, it was a ghost that had frightened him and put a cold hand -between him and Elsa. - -“My dear old man!” I cried at the sight of him. - -“What on earth has happened?” - -“A damnable and inconceivable thing!” - -I poured him out some brandy, and he drank it in gulps. Then he did a -strange and startling thing. Fumbling in his breast-pocket, he pulled -out a silver cigarette-case, and going over to the fireplace, dropped it -into the blaze of the wood logs which I had had lighted because of the -dampness of the room. - -“Why do you do that?” I asked. - -He watched the metal box blacken and then begin to melt. Several times -he poked it so as to get it deeper into the red embers. - -“My poor little Elsa!” he said in a pitiful way. “_Mein hussches -Madel!_” - -The story he told me later was astounding. Even now to people who were -not in the war, who do not know how many strange, fantastic things -happened in that wild nightmare, it will seem improbable and untrue. -Indeed, I think the central fact was untrue, except as a subjective -reality in the minds of Brand and Elsa. - -It happened when they were sitting alone in Elizabeth von Detmold’s -drawing-room. I fancy they must have been embracing each other, -though Brand did not tell me that. Anyhow, Elsa put her hand into his -breast-pocket and in a playful way pulled out his cigarette-case. - -“May I open it?” she asked. - -But she did not open it. She stared at a little monogram on its cover, -and then began to tremble so that Brand was scared. - -“What is the matter?” he said. - -Elsa let the cigarette-case drop on to the carpet. - -“That box!” she said, in an agonised voice. “Where did you find it?” - -Brand remembered where he had found it, though he had not given a -thought to it for more than two years. He had found it on a night in No -Man’s Land out by the Bois Français, near Fricourt. He had been lying -out there on the lip of a mine crater below a hummock of white chalk. -Just before dawn a German patrol had crept out, and he had shot at them. -One man dropped quite close to where Brand lay. After an hour, when dawn -came with a thick white mist rising from the moist earth, Brand crawled -over to the body and cut off its shoulder-straps for identification. It -was the body of a young man, almost a boy, and Brand saw, with a thrill -of satisfaction (it was his “tiger” time), that he had shot him clean -through the heart. A good shot in the twilight of the dawn! He thrust -his hands into the man’s pockets for papers, and found his pay-book and -some letters, and a cigarette-case. With these he crawled back into his -own trench. He remembered reading the letters. One was from the boy’s -sister, lamenting the length of the war, describing the growing hunger -of civilians in Germany, and saying how she prayed every night for her -brother’s safety, and for peace. He had read thousands of German letters -as an intelligence officer afterwards, but he remembered those because -of the night’s adventure. He had handed them over to the adjutant, for -headquarters, and had kept the cigarette-case, having lost his own. It -had the monogram of “H. v. K.” He had never thought about it from that -time to this. Now he thought about it with an intensity of remembrance. - -Brand told Elsa von Kreuzenach that he had found the box in No Man’s -Land. - -“It is my brother Heinrich’s,” she cried. “I gave it to him.” - -She drew back, shivering, from the cigarette-case--or was it from Brand? -When she spoke next it was in a whisper: “Did you kill him?” - -Brand lied to her, and she knew he was lying. She wept bitterly, and -when Brand kissed her she was cold, and fainted in his arms. - -That was Brand’s story, and it was incredible. Even now I cannot help -thinking that such a coincidence could not have happened. There is -plenty of room for doubt about that cigarette-case. It was of a usual -pattern, plain, with a wreath engraved round a monogram. That monogram -“H. v. K.” was astonishing in relation to Elsa von Kreuzenach, but there -are thousands of Germans, I imagine, with the same initials. I know two, -Hermann von Kranitz and Hans von Kurtheim. In a German directory I have -found many other names with those initials. I refuse to believe that -Brand should have gone straight to the house of that boy whom he had -killed in No Man’s Land. - -He believed it, and Elsa was sure of it. That was the tragedy, and the -ghost of the girl’s dead brother stood between them now. - -For an hour or more he paced up and down my room in an agony of mind, -and none of my arguments would convince him or comfort him. - -Several times he spoke one sentence which puzzled me. - -“It makes no difference,” he said. “It makes no difference.” - -I think he meant that it made no difference to his love or purpose. When -one thinks over this incident one is inclined to agree with that view. -He was no more guilty in killing Elsa’s brother, if he did, than in -killing any other German. If their love were strong enough to cross over -fields of dead, the fact that Elsa’s brother lay there, shot by Brand’s -bullet, made, as he said, “no difference.” It only brought home more -closely to two poor individuals the meaning of that world-tragedy. - -Elsa, after her first shock of horror, argued that too, and at the -beginning of March Brand and she stood at the altar together in a church -at the end of the Hohenzollem Ring, and were made man and wife. - -At the ceremony there were present Elizabeth von Detmold, Franz von -Kreuzenach, Dr. Small, and myself, as Brand’s best man. There was, I -think, another presence there, visible only to the minds of Brand and -Elsa, and, strangely enough, to mine. As the bride and bridegroom stood -together before the priest I had a most uncomfortable vision of the dead -body of a German boy lying on the altar beyond them, huddled up as I -had seen many grey figures in the mud of Flanders and Picardy. This idea -was, of course, due to that war-neurosis which, as Dr. Small said, was -the malady of the world. I think at one moment of the service Elsa and -Brand felt some cold touch upon them, for they both looked round in a -startled way. It may have been a draught stealing through the aisle. - -We had tea at Elizabeth von Detmold’s house, and Brand and his wife were -wonderfully self-controlled. They could not be happy beyond the sense of -a spiritual union because Brand had been ordered by telegram to report -at the War Office in London, and was leaving Cologne at four o’clock -that afternoon, while Elsa was going home to her parents, who were -ignorant of her marriage. Brand’s recall, I am convinced, had been -engineered by his father, who was determined to take any step to prevent -his son’s marriage with a German girl. - -Young Harding was going with him, having been given his demobilisation -papers, and being desperately anxious, as I have told, to get home. It -was curious that Brand should be his fellow-traveller that night, and I -thought of the contrast of their journey, one man going to his wife -with eager gladness, the other man leaving his wife after a few hours of -marriage. - -At the end poor Elsa clung to her husband with most passionate grief -and, without any self-consciousness now, because of the depth of his -emotion, Brand, with tears in his eyes, tenderly embraced her. She -walked back bravely with her brother to her mother’s house, while Brand -and I raced to the station where his orderly was waiting with his kit. - -“See you again soon,” said Brand, gripping my hand. - -“Where?” I asked, and he answered gloomily: “God knows.” - -It was not on the Rhine. There was a general exodus of all officers -who could get “demobbed” on any claim or pretext, the small Army of -Occupation settled down to a routine life without adventure, and the -world’s interest shifted to Paris, where the fate of Europe was being -settled by a company of men with the greatest chance in history. I -became a wanderer in a sick world. - -END OF BOOK II. - - - - - -BOOK III--BUILDERS OF PEACE - - - - -I - - -Those of us who had been in exile during the years of war and now -returned to peace found that England had changed in our absence. We -did not know this new England. We did not understand its spirit or its -people. Nor did they understand the men who came back from the many -fronts of war, by hundreds of thousands, now that demobilisation had -become a spate after murmurings that were loud with the menace of revolt -from men who had been long patient. - -These “_revenants,_” the men who came back out of the terror, were -so many Rip van Winkles (of a youthful kind), looking round for the -companions of their boyhood, going to old places, touching old stones, -sitting by the same fireside, but with a sense of ghostliness. A new -generation had arrived since 1914. The children had become boys and -girls; the girls had grown into womanhood precociously. There were -legions of “flappers” in London and other big cities, earning good wages -in Government offices and factories, spending most of their money on the -adornment of their prettiness, self-reliant, audacious, out for the fun -of life, and finding it. The tragedy of the war had not touched them. It -had been a great “lark” to them. They accepted the slaughter of their -brothers or their fathers light-heartedly, after a few bursts of tears -and a period of sentiment in which pride was strongest. They had grown -up to the belief that a soldier is generally killed or wounded, and that -he is glad to take the risk, or, if not, ought to be, as part of the -most exciting and enjoyable game of war. Women had filled many of the -jobs which formerly were the exclusive possession of men, and the men -coming back looked at these legions of women clerks, tram conductors, -ticket collectors, munition workers, plough-girls, and motor drivers -with the brooding thought that they, the men, had been ousted from their -places. A new class had arisen out of the whirlpool of social upheaval. -The profiteers, in a large way of business, had prospered exceedingly -out of the supply and demand of massacre. The profiteer’s wife clothed -herself in furs and jewels. The profiteer’s daughters were dancing by -night and sleeping by day. The farmers and the shopkeepers had made a -good thing out of war. They liked war so long as they were untouched by -air-raids or not afflicted by boys who came back blind or crippled. They -had always been optimists. They were optimists now, and claimed a share -in the merit of the victory that had been won by the glorious watchword -of “business as usual.” They hoped the terms of peace would be merciless -upon the enemy, and they demanded the Kaiser’s head as a pleasant -sacrifice adding spice to the great banquet of victory celebrations. - -Outwardly, England was gay and prosperous and light-spirited. It was -only by getting away from the seething crowds in the streets, from the -dancing crowds, and the theatre crowds, and the shopping crowds, that -men came face to face with private and hidden tragedy. In small houses -or big, there were women who had lost their men and were listless -and joyless, the mothers of only sons who did not come back with the -demobilised tide, and the sweethearts of boys who would never fulfil the -promise that had given hope in life to lonely girlhood. There was a new -rich, but there was also a new poor, and people on small fixed incomes -or with little nest-eggs of capital on which they scraped out life found -themselves reduced to desperate straits by the soaring of prices and the -burden of taxation. Underneath the surface joy of a victorious people -there was bitterness to which victory was a mockery and a haggard grief -at the cost of war in precious blood. But the bitterness smouldered -without any flame of passion, and grief nagged at people’s hearts -silently. - -Many of the men who came back were in a strange mood--restless, morbid, -neurotic. Their own people did not understand them. They could not -understand themselves. They had hated war, most of them, but this peace -seemed flat and unprofitable to their souls. All purpose and meaning -seemed suddenly to have gone out of life. Perhaps it was the narrowness -of English home-life. Men who had travelled to far places of the world, -who had seen the ways of foreign people, and had been part of a great -drama, found themselves back again in a little house, closed in and -isolated by the traditions of English individualism, so that often the -next-door neighbour is a stranger. They had a sense of being suffocated. -They could not stay indoors with the old pleasure in a pipe or a book by -the fireside or a chat with mother or wife. Often they would wander out -on the chance of meeting some of the “old pals,” or, after a heavy sigh, -say, “Oh, God!... let’s go to a theatre or a ‘movie’ show!” The -theatres were crammed with men seeking distraction, yet bored with -their pleasures and relapsing into a deeper moodiness afterwards. Wives -complained that their husbands had “changed.” Their characters had -hardened and their tempers were frayed, so that they were strangely -irritable and given to storms of rage about nothing at all. It was -frightening.... There was an epidemic of violence and of horrible -sensual crimes with women victims, ending often in suicide. There were -mob riots by demobilised soldiers or soldiers still waiting in camps for -demobilisation. Police stations were stormed and wrecked and policemen -killed by bodies of men who had been heroes in the war and now fought -like savages against their fellow-citizens. Some of them pleaded guilty -in court and made queer statements about an utter ignorance of their -own actions after the disorder had begun. It seemed as though they had -returned to the psychology of that war when men, doped with rum, or -drunk with excitement, had leapt over the parapet and remembered nothing -more of a battle until they found themselves panting in an enemy trench -or lying wounded on a stretcher. It was a dangerous kind of psychology -in civil life. - -Labourers back at work in factories or mines or railway stations or -dockyards, after months or years of the soldier-life, did not return to -their old conditions or their old pay with diligence and thankfulness. -They demanded higher wages to meet the higher cost of life and after -that a margin for pleasure, and after that shorter hours for higher pay -and less work in shorter hours. If their demands were not granted they -downed tools and said: “What about it?” Strikes became frequent and -general, and at a time when the cost of war was being added up to -frightful totals of debt which could only be reduced by immense -production the worker slacked off, or suspended his labours, and said: -“Who gets the profits of my sweat?... I want a larger share.” He was -not frightened of a spectre that was scaring all people of property -and morality in the Western world. The spectre of Bolshevism, red-eyed, -dripping with blood, proclaiming anarchy as the new gospel, did not -cause a shiver to the English working man. He said, “What has Russia to -do with me? I’m English. I have fought this war to save England, I have -done the job; now then, where’s my reward?” - -Men who looked round for a living while they lived on an unemployment -dole that was not good enough for their new desires became sullen when -they returned home night after night with the same old story of “Nothing -doing.” The women were still clinging to their jobs. They had earned -their independence by good work in war-time. They hated the thought -of going back to little homes to be household drudges, dependent for -pocket-money on father and brothers. They had not only tasted liberty; -they had made themselves free of the large world. They had proved their -quality and strength. They were as good as men, and mostly better. Why -should they slink back to the little narrow rut of life? But the men -said, “Get out. Give us back our jobs.” - -It was hard on the officer boys--hardest of all on them. They had gone -straight from school to the war, and had commanded men twice as old as -themselves and drawn good pay for pocket-money as first lieutenants, -captains, even majors of air squadrons and tank battalions. They had -gained immense experience in the arts and crafts of war, and that -experience was utterly useless in peace. - -“My dear young man,” said the heads of prosperous businesses who had -been out to “beat the Boche,” even though they sacrificed their only -sons or all their sons (with heroic courage!), “you have been wasting -your time. You have no qualifications whatever for a junior clerkship -in this office. On the contrary, you have probably contracted habits of -idleness and inaccuracy which would cause a lot of trouble. This vacancy -is being filled by a lad who has not been vitiated by military life, and -has nothing to unlearn. Good-morning!” - -And the young officers, after a statement like that, went home with -swear-words learnt in Flanders, and said: “That’s the reward of -patriotism, eh? Well, we seem to have been fooled pretty badly. Next -time we shan’t be so keen to strew the fields of death with our fresh -little corpses.” - -These words, all this murmur from below, did not reach those who sat in -high places. They were wonderfully complacent, except when outbreaks of -violence or the cessation of labour shocked them with a sense of danger. -They arranged peace celebrations before the peace, victory marches when -the fruits of victory were as bitter as Dead Sea fruit in the mouths of -those who saw the ruin of the world; and round a council table in Paris -statesmen of Europe abandoned all the ideals for which the war had been -fought by humble men and killed the hopes of all those who had looked to -them as the founders of a new era of humanity and common sense. - - - - -II - - -It was when the Peace Treaty had been signed, but not ratified by the -representatives of Germany and Austria, that I met some of the friends -with whom I had travelled along many roads of war or had met in scenes -which already seemed far back in history. In London, after a journey to -America, I came again in touch with young Harding, whom I had seen last -on his way home to his pretty wife, who had fretted at his long absence, -and Charles Fortune, whose sense of humour had made me laugh so often -in the time of tragedy. Those were chance meetings in the eddies of -the great whirlpool of London life, as I saw other faces, strange for -a moment or two, until the difference between a field-cap and a bowler -hat, a uniform and civil clothes, was wiped out by a look of recognition -and the sound of a remembered voice. - -Not by chance but by a friendship which had followed me across the world -with written words, I found myself once more in the company of Wickham -Brand, and with him went again to spend some evenings with Eileen -O’Connor, who was now home in Kensington, after that grim drama which -she had played so long in Lille. - -With “Daddy” Small I had been linked up by a lucky chain of coincidences -which had taken us both to New York at the same time and brought us back -to Europe on the same boat, which was the White Star liner _Lapland_. - -My chance meeting with Harding led to a renewal of friendship which was -more of his seeking than mine, though I liked him a good deal. But he -seemed to need me, craving sympathy, which I gave with sincerity, and -companionship, which I could not give so easily, being a busy man. - -It was on the night when London went mad because of peace, though not so -mad, I was told, as on the night of armistice. It all seemed mad to me -when I was carried like a straw in a raging torrent of life which poured -down the Strand, swirled round Trafalgar Square, and choked all channels -westwards and eastwards of Piccadilly Circus. The spirit of London had -broken bounds. It came wildly from mean streets in the slum quarters to -the heart of the West End. The worst elements had surged up and mingled -with the middle-class folk and those who claim exclusiveness by the -power of wealth. In ignorance that all barriers of caste were to be -broken that night, “society” women, as they are called, rather insolent -in their public display of white shoulders and diamonds and furs, set -out in motor cars for hotels and restaurants which had arranged peace -dinners and peace dances. Some of them, I saw, were unaccompanied by -their own men, whom they were to meet later, but the vacant seats in -their open cars were quickly filled by soldiers, seamen, or merry devils -in civil clothes who climbed over the backs of the cars when they were -brought to a standstill in the crush of vast crowds. Those uninvited -guests, some of them wearing women’s bonnets, most of them fluttering -with flags pinned to their coats, all of them provided with noisemaking -instruments, behaved with ironical humour to the pretty ladies, touched -their coiled hair with “ticklers,” blew loud blasts on their toy -trumpets, delivered cockney orations to them for the enjoyment of the -crowds below. Some of the pretty ladies accepted the situation with -courage and good humour, laughing with shrill mirth at their grotesque -companions. Others were frightened and angry. I saw one girl try to beat -off the hands of men clambering about her car. They swarmed into it and -paid no heed to her cries of protest.... - -All the flappers were out in the Strand and in Trafalgar Square and many -streets. They were factory girls, shop girls, office girls, and their -eyes were alight with adventure and a pagan ecstasy. Men teased them -as they passed with the long “ticklers,” and they, armed with the same -weapon, fought duels with these aggressors, and then fled, and were -pursued into the darkness of side-streets, where they were caught and -kissed. Soldiers in uniform, English, Scots, Canadians, Australians, -came lurching along in gangs, arm in arm, then mingled with the girls, -changed headgear with them, struggled and danced and stampeded with -them. Seamen, three sheets in the wind, steered an uneven course through -this turbulent sea of life, roaring out choruses, until each man had -found a maid for the dance of joy. - -London was a dark forest with nymphs and satyrs at play in the glades -and Pan stamping his hoofs like a giddy goat. All the passions let loose -by war, the breaking down of old restraints, the gladness of youth at -escape from death, provided the motive-power, unconscious and primitive, -behind this carnival of the London crowds. From some church a procession -came into Trafalgar Square, trying to make a pathway through the -multitude. A golden cross was raised high, and clergymen in surplices, -with acolytes and faithful women, came chanting solemn words. The crowd -closed about them. A mirthful sailor teased the singing women with his -“tickler.” Loud guffaws, shrill laughter, were in the wake of the -procession, though some men stood to attention as the cross passed, and -others bared their heads, and something hushed the pagan riot a moment. - -At the windows in Pall Mall men in evening clothes who had been officers -in the world-war sat by the pretty women who had driven through the -crowds, looking out on the noisy pageant of the street. A piano-organ -was playing, and two young soldiers danced with ridiculous grace, -imitating the elegance and languorous ecstasy of society dancers. One of -them wore a woman’s hat and skirt, and was wonderfully comic. - -I stood watching them, a little stupefied by all the noise and tumult -of this “Peace” night, and with a sense of tragic irony, remembering -millions of boys who lay dead in quiet fields and the agony of many -peoples in Europe. It was then that I saw young Harding. He was sitting -in his club window just above the dancing soldiers and looking out with -a grave and rather woe-begone face, remarkable in contrast with the -laughing faces of fellow-clubmen and their women. I recognised him after -a moment’s query in my mind, and said: “Hulloa, Harding!” - -He stared at me, and I saw the sudden dawning of remembrance. - -“Come in,” he answered. “I had no idea you were back again!” - -So I went into his club and sat by his side at the open window, glad of -this retreat from the pressure and tumult of the mob below. - -He talked conventionally for a little while, and asked me whether I had -had “a good time” in the States, and whether I was busy, and why the -Americans seemed so hostile to President Wilson. I understood from -him that he approved of the Peace Treaty and was glad that Germany and -Austria had been “wiped off the map” as far as it was humanly possible. - -We chatted like that for what I suppose was something more than half -an hour, while we looked out upon the seething multitude in the street -below, when suddenly the boy’s mask fell from him, so abruptly and -with such a naked revelation of a soul in anguish that concealment was -impossible. - -I saw him lean forward with his elbows on the windowsill and his hands -clenching an iron bar. His face had become like his shirt front, almost -as white as that. A kind of groan came from him, like that of a man -badly wounded. The people on either side of him turned to look at him, -but he was unconscious of them, as he stared at something in the street. -I followed the direction of his eyes and guessed that he was looking at -a motor-car which had been stopped by the crowd, who were surging about -it. It was an open car, and inside were a young man and woman in fancy -dress as Pierrot and Columbine. They were standing up and pelting the -crowd with long coloured streamers, which the mob caught and tossed -back again with shouts of laughter. The girl was very pretty, with an -audacious little face beneath the white sugar-loaf cap, and her eyes -were on fire. Her companion was a merry-eyed fellow, dean-shaven and -ruddy-faced (for he had not chalked it to Pierrot’s whiteness), and -looked to me typical of a naval officer or one of our young airmen. I -could see nothing to groan about in such a sight. - -“What’s wrong, Harding?” - -I touched him on the elbow, for I did not like him to give himself away -before the other company in the window-seat. - -He rose at once, and walked in a stumbling way across the room, while I -followed. The room was empty where we stood. - -“Aren’t you well?” I asked. - -He laughed in a most tragic way. - -“Did you see those two in the car, Pierrot and Columbine?” - -I nodded. - -“Columbine was my wife. Pierrot is now her husband. Funny, isn’t it?” - -My memory went back to that night in Cologne, less than six months -before, when Harding had asked me to use my influence to get him -demobilised, and as an explanation of his motive opened his pocket-book -and showed me the photograph of a pretty girl, and said, “That’s -my wife;... she is hipped because I have been away so long.” I felt -enormously sorry for him. - -“Come and have a whisky in the smoke-room,” said Harding. “I’d like a -yarn, and we shall be alone.” - -I did not want him to tell me his tale. I was tired of tragic history. -But I could not refuse. The boy wanted to unburden himself. I could see -that, though for quite a time after we had sat on each side of the wood -fire he hesitated in getting to the point and indulged in small talk -about his favourite brand of cigars and my evil habit of smoking the -worst kind of cigarettes. - -Suddenly we plunged into what were the icy waters of his real thoughts. - -“About my wife... I’d like you to know. Others will tell you, and you’d -have heard already if you hadn’t been away so long. But I think you -would get a wrong notion from others. The fact is, I don’t blame Evelyn. -I would like you to understand that. I blame the Germans for everything.” - -“The Germans?” - -That was a strange statement, and I could not see the drift of it until -he explained his meaning. - -“The Germans made the war, and the war took me away from Evelyn just -after our marriage.... Imagine the situation, a kid of a girl, wanting -to be merry and bright, eager for the fun of life, and all that, left -alone in a big old house in the country, or when she got fed up with -that in a big gloomy house in town. She got fed up with both pretty -quick. I used to get letters from her--every day for a while--and she -used to say in every one of them, ‘I’m fed up like Billy-O.’ That was -her way of putting it, don’t you know, and I got scared. But what -could I do out there except write and tell her to try and get busy with -something? Well, she got busy all right!” - -Harding laughed again in his woeful way, which was not good to hear. -Then he became angry and passionate, and told me it was all the fault of -“those damned women.” - -I asked him what “damned women,” and he launched into a wild -denunciation of a certain set of women--most of the names he mentioned -were familiar to me from full-length portraits in the _Sketch_ and -_Tatler_--who had spent the years of war in organising fancy bazaars, -charity matinées, private theatricals for Red Cross funds, “and all -that,” as Harding remarked in his familiar phrase. He said they were -rotten all through, utterly immoral, perfectly callous of all the death -and tragedy about them, except in a false, hysterical way at times. - -“They were ghouls,” he said. - -Many of them had married twice, three times, even more than that, before -the boys who were killed were cold in their graves. Yet those were -the best, with a certain respect for convention. Others had just let -themselves go. They had played the devil with any fellow who came within -their circle of enticement, if he had a bit of money, or could dance -well, or oiled his hair in the right way. - -“They corrupted English society,” said Harding, “while they smiled and -danced, and dressed in fancy clothes, and posed for their photos in the -papers. It was they who corrupted Evelyn when the poor kid was fighting -up against her loneliness and very hipped, and all that.” - -“Who was the man?” I asked, and Harding hesitated before he told me. -It was with frightful irony that he answered: “The usual man in most of -these cases, the man who is often one’s best pal. Damn him!” - -Harding, seemed to repent of that curse; at least, his next words were -strangely inconsistent. - -“Mind you, I don’t blame him, either. It was I who sent him to Evelyn. -He was in the Dragoons with me, and when he went home on leave I said, -‘Go and cheer up my little wife, old man. Take her to a theatre or two, -and all that. She’s devilishly lonely.’ Needless to say, he fell in love -with her. I might have known it. As for Evelyn, she was immensely taken -with young Dick. He was a bit of a humorist and made her laugh. Laughter -was a devilish good thing in war-time. That was where Dick had his pull. -I might have known _that!_ I was a chuckle-headed idiot.” - -The end of the story was abrupt, and at the time I found it hard to find -extenuating circumstances in the guilt of the girl who had smashed -this boy Harding. She lied to him up to the very moment of his -demobilisation; at least, she gave him no clue to her purpose until -she hit him, as it were, full in the face with a mortal blow to his -happiness. - -He had sent her a wire with the one word “Demobilised,” and then had -taken the next train back and a cab from Charing Cross to that house of -his at Rutland Gate. - -“Is the mistress well?” he had asked one of the maids when his kit was -handled in the hall. - -“The mistress is out, sir,” said the maid, and he remembered afterwards -that she looked queerly at him, with a kind of pity. - -There was the usual note waiting for him. Evelyn was “very sorry.” She -hated causing her husband the grief she knew he would feel, but she and -Dick could not do without each other. The war had altered everything, -and many wives to many husbands. She hoped Harding would be happy after -a bit.... - -Harding was not happy. When he read that note he went a little mad, and -roamed round London with an automatic pistol, determined to kill his -former friend if he could set eyes on him. Fortunately, he did not find -him. Evelyn and Dick had gone off to a village in Devonshire, and after -three days with murder in his heart Harding had been very ill and had -gone into a nursing-home. There, in his weakness, he had, he told me, -“thought things out.” The result of his meditations amounted to no -more than the watchword of many people in years of misery: “_C’est la -guerre!_” - -It was the war which had caused his tragedy. It had put too great a -strain on human nature, or at least on human nerves and morals. It -had broken down the conventions and traditions of civilised life. The -Germans had not only destroyed many towns and villages, but many homes -and hearts far from the firing-line. They had let the devil loose. - -“Quite a number of my pals,” said Harding, “are in the same boat with -me. They either couldn’t stick their wives, or their wives couldn’t -stick them. It gives one a sense of companionship!” - -He smiled in a melancholy way, but then confessed to loneliness--so many -of his real pals had gone west--and asked whether he could call on me -now and then. It was for that reason that he came to my house fairly -often, and sometimes Fortune, who came too at times, made him laugh, as -in the old days. - - - - -III - - -Fortune and I met also in a crowd, but indoors. Brand and Eileen -O’Connor were both to be at one of the evening parties which assembled -every now and then in a flat at Chelsea belonging to Susy Whincop, -designer of stained glass, driver of ambulances for the Scottish Women’s -Convoy, and sympathetic friend before the war of any ardent soul who -grew long hair if a man, short hair if a woman, and had some special -scheme, philosophy, or inspiration for the welfare of humanity. - -I had known Susy and her set in the old days. They were the minor -intellectuals of London, and I had portrayed some of them in a novel -called “Intellectual Mansions,” which they did not like, though I loved -them all. They wrote little poems, painted little pictures, produced -little plays, and talked about all subjects under heaven with -light-hearted humour, an arrogance towards popular ideas, and a quick -acceptance of the new, the unusual and the revolutionary in art and -thought. Into their way of life war crashed suddenly with its thunder -notes of terror. All that they had lived for seemed to be destroyed, -and all their ideals overthrown. They had believed in beauty, and it was -flung into the mud, and bespattered with blood, and buried beneath the -ugly monsters of war’s idolatry. - -They had been devotees of liberty, and were made slaves of the drill -sergeant and other instruments of martial law. They had been enemies -of brutality, cruelty, violence, but all human effort now was for the -slaughter of men, and the hero was he who killed most with bayonet or -bomb. Their pretty verses were made of no account. Their impressionistic -paintings were not so useful as the camouflage of tin huts. Their little -plays were but feeble drama to that which now was played out on the -world’s stage to the roar of guns and the march of armies. They went -into the tumult and fury of it all, and were lost. I met some of them, -like Fortune and Brand, in odd places. Many of them died in the dirty -ditches. Some of them wrote poems before they died, stronger than -their work before the war, with a noble despair or the exaltation of -sacrifice. Others gave no sign of their previous life, and were just -absorbed into the ranks--ants in these legions of soldier-ants. Now -those who had escaped with life were coming back to their old haunts, -trying to pick up old threads, getting back, if they could, to the old -ways of work, hoping for a new inspiration out of immense experience, -but not yet finding it. - -In Susy Whincop’s flat some of them had gathered when I went there, and -when I looked round upon them, seeing here and there vaguely-remembered -faces, I was conscious of a change that had overtaken them, and, with a -shock, wondered whether I too had altered so much in those five years. -I recognised Peter Hallam, whom I had known as a boy just down from -Oxford, with a genius (in a small way) for satirical verse and a talent -for passionate lyrics of a morbid and erotic type. Yes, it was certainly -Peter, though his face had hardened and he had cropped his hair short -and walked with one leg stiff. - -He was talking to a girl with bobbed hair. It was Jennie Southcombe, -who had been one of the heroines of the Serbian retreat, according to -accounts of newspaper correspondents. - -“My battery,” said Peter, “plugged into old Fritz with open sights for -four horns. We just mowed ‘em down.” - -Another face rang a little bell in my memory. Surely that was Alfred -Lyon, the Futurist painter? No, it could not be, for Lyon had dressed -like an Apache, and this man was in conventional evening clothes and -looked like a Brigadier in mufti. Alfred Lyon?... Yes, there he was, -though he had lost his pose--cribbed from Murger’s _Vie de Bohème_--and -his half-starved look, and the wildness in his eyes. As he passed Susy -Whincop he spoke a few words, which I overheard. - -“I’ve abandoned Futurism. The present knocked that silly. Our little -violence, which shocked Suburbia, was made ridiculous by the enormous -thing that smashed every convention into a cocked hat.’ I’m just going -to put down some war scenes--I made notes in the trenches--with that -simplicity of the primitive soul to which we went back in that way of -life. The soldier’s point of view, his vision, is what I shall try for.” - -“Splendid!” said Susy. “Only, don’t shrink from the abomination. We’ve -got to make the world understand--and remember.” - -I felt a touch on my sleeve, and a voice said, “Hulloa!... Back again?” - -I turned and saw an oldish-young man, with white hair above a lean, -clean-shaven face and sombre eyes. I stared, but could not fix him. - -“Don’t you remember?” he said. “Wetherall, of the Stage Society!” - -“Oh, Lord, yes!” - -I grasped his hand, and tried to keep the startled look out of my eyes. -But he saw it, and smiled. - -“Four years as a prisoner of the Turk have altered me a bit. This white -hair, eh? And I feel like Rip van Winkle.” - -He put into words something which I had been thinking since my arrival -in Susy’s rooms. - -“We are the _revenants_, the ghosts who have come back to their old -haunts. We are pretending that everything is the same as before, and -that we are the same. But it’s all different, and we have changed most -of all. Five years of war have dug their hoofs into the faces of most -people in this crowd. Some of them look fifteen, twenty, years older, -and I expect they’ve been through a century of experience and emotion.” - -“What’s coming out of it?” I asked. “Anything big?” - -“Not from us,” said Wetherall. “Most of us are finished. Our nerves have -gone to pieces, and our vitality has been sapped. We shall put down a -few notes of things seen and understood. But it’s the next generation -that will get the big vision, or the one after next.” - -Then I was able to shake hands with Susy Whincop, and, as I have said, -she left me in no doubt about the change that four years of war had made -to me. - -She held me at arm’s length, studying my face. - -“Soul alive!” she said. “You’ve been through it all right! Hell’s -branding-irons have been busy with a fair-faced man.” - -“As bad as that?” I asked, and she answered very gravely, “As bad as -that.” - -She had hardly changed, except for a few streaks of grey in her brown -hair. Her low, broad forehead was as smooth as before; her brown eyes -shone with their old steady light. She had not lost her sense of humour, -though she had seen a good deal of blood and agony and death. - -“How’s humanity?” I asked, and she laughed and Shrugged her shoulders. - -“What can one do with it? I thought we were going to catch the old devil -by the tail and hold him fast, but he’s broken loose again. This peace! -Dear God!... And all the cruelty and hatred that have survived the -massacre! But I don’t despair even now. In this room there is enough -good-will and human kindness to create a new world. We’re going to have -a good try to make things better by-and-by.” - -“Who’s your star to-night?” I asked. “Who is the particular -Hot-Gospeller with a mission to convert mankind?” - -“I’ve several,” said Susy. - -She glanced round the room, and her eyes rested on a little man with -goggles and a goatee beard, none other than my good friend Dr. Small, -with whom I had travelled down many roads. I had no notion that he knew -Susy or was to be here to-night. - -“There’s one great soul--a little American doctor whose heart is as -big as humanity itself, and whose head is filled with the wisdom of the -wise.” - -“I know him,” I said, “and I agree with you.” - -He caught our eyes fixed on him, and blinked through his goggles, and -then waved his hand, and made his way to us. - -“Hulloa, doc.!” I said. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Susy Whincop?” - -“No need,” he answered. “Miss Whincop is the golden link between all men -of good-will.” - -Susy was pleased with that. She patted the little doctor’s hand and -said, “Bully for you, doctor! and may the Stars and Stripes wave over -the League of Nations!” - -Then she was assailed by other guests, and the doctor and I took refuge -in a corner. - -“How’s everything?” I asked. - -The doctor was profoundly dejected, and did not hide the gloom that -possessed his soul. - -“Sonny,” he answered, “we shall have to fight with our backs to the -wall, because the enemy--the old devil--is prevailing against us. I have -just come over from Paris, and I don’t mind telling you that what I saw -during the Peace Conference has made me doubt the power of goodness over -evil.” - -“Tell me,” I said. - -“Daddy” Small’s story was not pleasant to hear. It was the story of the -betrayal, one by one, of every ideal for which simple men had fought and -died, a story of broken pledges, of hero-worship dethroned, and of great -peoples condemned to lingering death. The Peace Treaty, he said, would -break the heart of the world and prepare the way for new, more dreadful, -warfare. - -“How about Wilson?” I asked. - -The little doctor raised his hands like a German crying, “_Kamerad!_” - -“Wilson was not big enough. He had the future of civilisation in his -hands, but his power was filched from him, and he never knew until -the end that he had lost it. He was like a simple Gulliver among the -Liliputians. They tied him down with innumerable threads of cotton -while he slept in self-complacency with a sense of righteousness. He was -slow-thinking among quick-witted people. He stated a general principle, -and they drafted out clauses which seemed to fulfil the principle while -violating it in every detail. They juggled with facts and figures so -that black seemed white through his moral spectacles, and he said Amen -to their villainy, believing that God had been served by righteousness. -Bit by bit they broke his pledges and made a jigsaw puzzle of them so -artfully that he believed they were uncracked. Little by little they -robbed him of his honour, and he was unaware of the theft. In preambles -and clause headings and interpretations they gave lip-service to the -fourteen points upon which the armistice was granted, and to which the -allied nations were utterly pledged, not only to the Germans and all -enemies, but to their own people. Not one of those fourteen points is -in the reality of the Treaty. There has been no self-determination of -peoples. Millions have been transferred into unnatural boundaries. There -have been no open covenants openly arrived at. The Conference was within -closed doors. The clauses of the Peace Treaty were kept secret from the -world until an American journalist got hold of a copy and sent it to -his paper. What has become of the equality of trade conditions and the -removal of economic barriers among all nations consenting to peace? -Sonny, Europe has been carved up by the spirit of vengeance, and -multitudes of men, women and children have been sentenced to death by -starvation. Another militarism is enthroned above the ruin of German -militarism. Wilson was hoodwinked into putting his signature to a peace -of injustice which will lead by desperation to world anarchy and strife. -When he understands what thing he has done he will be stricken by a -mortal blow to his conscience and his pride.” - -“Doctor,” I said, “there is still hope in the League of Nations. We must -all back that.” - -He shook his head. - -“The spirit has gone out of it. It was born without a soul. I believe -now that the future welfare of the world depends upon a change of heart -among the peoples, inspired by individuals in all nations who will work -for good and give a call to humanity, indifferent to statesmen, treaties -and Governments.” - -“The International League of Good-will?” - -He nodded and smiled. - -“Something like that.” - -I remembered a dinner-party in New York after the armistice. I had been -lecturing on the League of Nations at a time when the Peace Treaty was -still unsigned, but when already there was a growing hostility against -President Wilson, startling in its intensity. The people of the United -States were still moved by the emotion and idealism with which they had -roused great armies and sent them to the fields of France. Some of the -men were returning home again. I stood outside a club in New York when a -darkie regiment returned its colours, and I heard the roars of cheering -that followed the march of the negro troops. I saw Fifth Avenue filled -with triumphal arches, strung across with jewelled chains, festooned -with flags and trophies of the home-coming of the New York Division. The -heart of the American people was stirred by the pride of its achievement -on the way to victory and by a new sense of power over the destiny -of mankind. But already there was a sense of anxiety about the -responsibilities to which Wilson in Europe was pledging them without -their full and free consent. They were conscious that their old -isolation was being broken down, and that by ignorance or rash promise -they might be drawn into other European adventures which were no concern -of theirs. They knew how little was their knowledge of European peoples, -with their rivalries, and racial hatreds, and secret intrigues. Their -own destiny as a free people might be thwarted by being dragged into -the jungle of that unknown world. In any case Wilson was playing a lone -hand, pledging them without their advice or agreement, subordinating -them, it seemed, to the British Empire, with six votes on the Council of -the League to their poor one. What did he mean? By what right did he do -so? - -At every dinner-table these questions were asked before the soup was -drunk; at the coffee end of the meal every dinner-party was a debating -club, and the women joined with the men in hot discussion; until some -tactful soul laughed loudly, and some hostess led the way to music or a -dance. - -The ladies had just gone after one of these debates, leaving us to our -cigars and coffee, when “Daddy” Small made a proposition which startled -me at the time. - -“See here,” he said to his host and the other men. “Out of this -discussion one thing stands clear and straight. It is that in this room, -now, at this table, are men of intellect--American and English--men of -goodwill towards mankind, men of power in one way or another, who agree -that whatever happens there must be eternal friendship between England -and the United States.” - -“Sure!” said a chorus of voices. - -“In other countries there are men with the same ideals as, -ourselves--peace, justice between men and nations, a hatred of cruelty, -pity for women and children, charity and truth. Is that agreed?” - -“Sure!” said the other guests. - -They were mostly business men, well-to-do, but not of the “millionaire” - class, with here and there a writing-man, an artist and, as I remember, -a clergyman. - -“I am going to be a commercial traveller in charity,” said the little -doctor. “I am going across the frontiers to collect clients for an -international society of goodwill. I propose to establish a branch at -this table.” - -The suggestion was received with laughter by some of the men, but, as I -saw, with gravity by others. - -“What would be the responsibilities, doctor. Do you want money?” - -This was from the manager of an American railroad. - -“We shall want a bit,” said the doctor. “Not much. Enough for stamps and -occasional booklets and typewriting. The chief responsibility would -be to spot lies leading to national antagonism, and to kill them by -exposure to cold truth; also, to put in friendly words, privately and -publicly, on behalf of human kindness across the barriers of hate and -malignity. Any names for the New York branch?” - -The doctor took down twelve names, pledged solemnly to his programmes.... - -I remembered that scene in New York when I stood with the little man in -Susy Whincop’s drawing-room. - -“What about this crowd?” I asked. - -“Sonny,” he said, “this place is reeking with humanity. The real stuff. -Idealists who have seen hell pretty close, most of them. Why, in this -room there’s enough goodwill to move mountains of cruelty, if we could -get a move on all together.” - -It was then that I saw Charles Fortune, though I was looking for Brand. - -Fortune was wearing one of his special “faces.” I interpreted it as his -soulful and mystical face. It broke a little as he winked at me. - -“Remarkable gathering,” he said. “The Intellectuals come back to their -lair. Some of them like little Bo-Peep who lost her sheep and left their -tails behind them.” - -“What does that mean?” I asked. - -“Nothing,” he answered. “We used to talk like that. I’m trying to grope -back.” - -He put his hand over his forehead wearily. - -“God!” he said. “How terrible was war in a Nissen hut! I cannot even now -forget that I was every yard a soldier!” - -He began to hum his well-remembered anthem, “Blear-eyed Bill the Butcher -of the Boche,” and then checked himself. - -“Nay, let us forget that melody of blood. Let us rather sing of fragrant -things of peace.” He hummed the nursery ballad of “Twinkle, twinkle, -little star, How I wonder what you are!” - -Susy Whincop seized him by the wrist. - -“So the Fat Boy has escaped the massacre? Come and make us laugh. We are -getting too serious at the piano end of the room.” - -“Lady,” said Fortune, “tempt me not to mirth-making. My irony is -terrible when roused.” - -As he went to the piano I caught sight of Brand just making his way -through a group by the door. - -I had never seen him in civil clothes, but he looked as I had imagined -him, in an old pre-war dinner-jacket and baggy trousers, and a shirt -that bulged abominably. A tuft of hair stuck up behind--the tuft that -Eileen O’Connor, had pulled for Auld Lang Syne. But he looked fine and -distinguished, with his hard, lean face and strong jaw and melancholy -eyes. - -He caught sight of me and gripped my hand, painfully. - -“Hullo, old man! Welcome back. I have heaps to tell you.” - -“Good things?” I asked. - -He shook his head. - -“Not good.... Damned bad, alas!” - -He did not continue the conversation. He stared across my shoulder at -the door as though he saw an apparition. I turned to see the object of -his gaze. It was Eileen O’Connor, whom I had first met in Lille. - -She was in an evening frock cut low at the neck, and her arms were bare. -There was a smile in her dark Irish eyes, and about her long humorous -mouth. The girl I had seen in Lille was not so elegant as this, not so -pretty. The lifting of care, perhaps, had made the change. - -Susy Whincop gave a cry of “Is that Eileen?” and darted to her. - -“It’s myself,” said Eileen, releasing herself from an ardent embrace, -“and all the better for seeing you. Who’s who in this distinguished -crowd?” - -“Old friends,” I said, being nearest to her. “Four men who walked one -day of history up a street in Lille, and met an Irish girl who had the -worship of the crowd.” - -She took my hand and I was glad of her look of friendship. - -“Four?” she said. “That’s too good to be true. All safe and home again?” - -It was astonishing that four of us should be there in a room in London -with the girl who had been the heroine of Lille. But there was Fortune -and “Daddy” Small and Brand and myself. - -The crowd gave us elbow-room while we stood round Eileen. To each she -gave her hands--both hands--and merry words of greeting. It was only I, -and she, perhaps, who saw the gloom on Brand’s face when she greeted him -last and said: “Is it well with you, Wickham?” - -Her colour rose a little at the sight of him, and he was paler than when -I saw him first that night. - -“Pretty well,” he said. “One still needs courage--even in peace.” - -He laughed a little as he spoke, but I knew that his laughter was the -camouflage of hidden trouble, at which he had hinted in his letters to -me. - -We could not have much talk that evening. The groups shifted and -re-shifted. The best thing was when Eileen sang “The Gentle Maiden” as -on a night in Lille. Brand, standing near the door, listened, strangely -unconscious of the people about him. - -“It’s good to hear that song again,” I said. - -He started, as though suddenly awakened. - -“It stirs queer old memories.” - -It was in Eileen’s own house that Brand and I renewed a friendship which -had been made in a rescued city where we had heard the adventure of this -girl’s life. - - - - -IV - - -As Brand admitted to me, and as he had outlined the trouble in his -letters, he was having “a bad time.” Since his marriage with Elsa von -Kreuzenach he had not had much peace of mind nor any kind of luck. After -leaving Cologne the War Office, prompted by some unknown influence--he -suspected his father, who knew the Secretary for War--had sent him off -on a special mission to Italy and had delayed his demobilisation until -a month before this meeting of ours. That had prevented his plan of -bringing Elsa to England, and now, when he was free and her journey -possible, he was seriously embarrassed with regard to a home for -her. There was plenty of room in his father’s house at Cheyne Walk, -Chelsea--too big a house for his father and mother and younger sister, -now that the eldest girl had married and his younger brother lay dead on -the Somme. It had been his idea that he and Elsa would live in the upper -rooms--it made a kind of flat--while he got back to novel-writing until -he earned enough to provide a home of his own. It was still his idea, -as the only possible place for the immediate future, but the family was -dead against it and expressed the utmost aversion, amounting almost to -horror, at the idea of receiving his German wife. By violent argument, -by appeals to reason and charity, most of all by the firm conviction of -his father that he was suffering from shell-shock and would go over the -borderline of sanity if thwarted too much, a grudging consent had been -obtained from them to give Elsa house-room. Yet he dreaded the coldness -of her welcome, and the hostility not only of his own people but of any -English society in which she might find herself. - -“I shouldn’t have believed,” said Brand, “that such vindictive hatred -could have outlasted the war, in England. The people here at home, who -have never seen war closer than an air-raid, are poisoned, twisted and -envenomed with hate. And the women are worst. My own mother--so sweet -and gentle in the old days--would see every German baby starve rather -than subscribe to a single drop of milk. My own sister--twenty years of -age, add as holy as an angel--would scratch out the eyes of every German -girl. She reads the papers every day with a feverish desire for the -Kaiser’s trial. She licks her lips at the stories of starvation in -Austria. ‘They are getting punished,’ she says. ‘Who?’ I ask her. -‘Austrian babies?’ And she says, ‘The people who killed my brother -and yours.’ What’s the good of telling her that I have killed _their_ -brothers--many of them--even the brother of my wife----” - -I shook my head at that, but Brand was insistent. - -“I’m sure of it.... It is useless telling her that the innocent are -being punished for the guilty, and that all Europe was involved in the -same guilt. She says, ‘You have altered your ideas. The strain of war -has been too much for you.’ She means I’m mad or bad.... Sometimes -I think I may be, but when I think of those scenes in Cologne, the -friendly way of our fighting men with their former enemy, the charity of -our Tommies, their lack of hatred now the job is done, I look at these -people in England, the stay-at-homes, and believe it is they who are -warped.” - -The news of Brand’s marriage with a German girl had leaked out, though -his people tried to hush it up. It came to me now and then as a tit-bit -of scandal from men who had been up at Oxford with him in the old days. - -“You know that fellow Wickham Brand?” - -“Yes.” - -“Heard the rumour about him?” - -“No.” - -“They say he’s got a German wife. Married her after the armistice.” - -“Why not?” - -That question of mine made them stare as though I had uttered some -blasphemy. Generally they did not attempt to answer it, but shrugged -their shoulders with a look of unutterable disgust, or said, -“Disgraceful!” They were men, invariably, who had done _embusqué_ work -in the war, in Government offices and soft jobs. Soldiers who had fought -their way to Cologne were more lenient. One of them said, “Some of the -German girls are devilish pretty. Not my style, perhaps, but kissable.” - -I saw something of Brand’s trouble when I walked down Knightsbridge with -him one day on the way to his home in Chelsea. Horace Chipchase, the -novelist, came face to face with us and gave a whoop of pleasure when -he saw us. Then suddenly, after shaking hand? with me and greeting Brand -warmly, he remembered the rumour that had reached him. Embarrassment -overcame him, and ignoring Brand he confined his remarks to me, -awkwardly, and made an excuse for getting on. He did not look at Brand, -again. - -“Bit strained in his manner,” I remarked, glancing sideways at Wickham. - -He strode on with tightened lips. - -“Shared rooms with me once, and I helped him when he was badly in need -of it.... He’s heard about Elsa. Silly blighter!” - -But it hurt the man, who was very sensitive under his hard crust. - -It was on the way to his house that he told me he had made arrangements -at last for Elsa to join him in England. One of his friends at -headquarters in Cologne was providing her with a passport and had agreed -to let her travel with him to Paris where he was to give evidence before -a committee of the Peace Conference. Brand could fetch her from there, -in a week’s time. - -“I am going to Paris next week,” I told him, and he gave a grunt of -pleasure, and said, “Splendid! We can both meet Elsa.” - -I thought it curious then, and afterwards, that he was anxious for my -company when he met his wife and when she was with him. I think the -presence of a third person helped him to throw off a little of the -melancholy into which he relapsed when alone. - -I asked him if Elsa’s family knew of her marriage and were reconciled -to it, and he told me that they knew, but were less reconciled now than -when she had first broken the news to her father and mother on the day -of her wedding. Then there had been a family “scene.” The General had -raged and stormed, and his wife had wept, but after that outburst had -decided to forgive her, in order to avoid a family scandal. There had -been a formidable assembly of uncles, aunts and cousins of the von -Kreuzenach family to sit in judgment upon this affair which, as they -said, “touched their honour,” and Elsa’s description of it, and of -her terror and sense of guilt (it is not easy to break with racial -traditions), was very humorous, though at the same time rather pathetic. -They had graciously decided, after prolonged discussions in which they -treated Elsa exactly as though she were the prisoner at a court-martial, -to acknowledge and accept her marriage with Captain Brand. They had been -led to this decision mainly owing to the information given by Franz von -Kreuzenach that Captain Brand belonged to the English aristocracy, -his father being Sir Amyas Brand, and a member of the English House of -Parliament. They were willing to admit that, inferior as Captain Brand’s -family might be to that of von Kreuzenach--so old and honoured in German -history--it was yet respectable and not unworthy of alliance with them. -Possibly--it was an idea suggested with enormous solemnity by Onkel -von Kreuzenach--Elsa’s marriage with the son of an English Member of -Parliament might be of service to the Father-land in obtaining some -amelioration of the Peace Terms (the Treaty was not yet signed), and in -counteracting the harsh malignity of France. They must endeavour to use -this opportunity provided by Elsa in every possible way as a patriotic -duty.... So at the end of the family conclave Elsa was not only forgiven -but was, to some extent, exalted as an instrument of God for the rescue -of their beloved Germany. - -That position of hers lasted in her family until the terms of the -Peace Treaty leaked out, and then were published in full. A storm -of indignation rose in Germany, and Elsa was a private victim of its -violence in her own house. The combined clauses of the Treaty were read -as a sentence of death by the German people. Clause by clause, they -believed it fastened a doom upon them, and insured their ruin. It -condemned them to the payment of indemnities which would demand all the -produce of their industry for many and uncertain years. It reduced them -to the position of a slave state, without an army, without a fleet, -without colonies, without the right to develop industries in foreign -countries, without ships to carry their merchandise, without coal -to supply their factories or raw material for their manufactures. To -enforce the payment of these indemnities foreign commissions would seize -all German capital invested in former enemy or neutral states, and would -keep armed forces on the Rhine ready to march at any time, years after -the conclusion of peace, into the heart of Germany. The German people -might work, but not for themselves. They had freed themselves of -their own tyrants, but were to be subject to an international tyranny -depriving them of all hope of gradual recovery from the ruin of defeat. -On the West and on the East, Austria was to be hemmed in by new states -formed out of her own flesh-and-blood under the domination of hostile -races. She was to be maimed and strangled. The Fourteen Points to -which the allies had pledged themselves before the armistice had been -abandoned utterly, and Wilson’s promise of a peace which would heal -the wounds of the world had been replaced by a peace of vengeance which -would plunge Central Europe into deep gulfs of misery, despair, and -disease. That, at least, was the German point of view. - -“They’re stunned,” said Brand. “They knew they were to be punished, and -they were willing to pay a vast price of defeat. But they believed that -under a republican Government they would be left with a future hope of -progress, a decent hope of life, based upon their industry. Now they -have no hope, for we have given them a thin chance of reconstruction. -They are falling back upon the hope of vengeance and revolt. We have -prepared another inevitable war when the Germans, with the help of -Russia, will strive to break the fetters we have fastened on them. So -goes the only purpose for which most of us fought this war, and all our -pals have died in vain.” - -He stopped in the street and beat the pavement with his stick. - -“The damned stupidity of it all!” he said. “The infernal wickedness of -those old men who have arranged this thing!” - -Three small boys came galloping up Cheyne Walk with toy reins and -tinkling bells. - -“Those children,” said Brand, “will see the things that we have seen and -go into the ditches of death before their manhood has been fulfilled. We -fought to save them, and have failed.” - -He told me that even Elsa had been aghast at the Peace Terms. - -“I hoped more from the generous soul of England,” she had written to -him. - -Franz von Kreuzenach had written more bitterly than that. - -“We have been betrayed. There were millions of young men in Germany who -would have worked loyally to fulfil Wilson’s conditions of peace as -they were pledged in his Fourteen Points. They would have taken their -punishment with patience and courage, knowing the penalty of defeat. -They would have worked for the new ideals of a new age, which were to be -greater liberty and the brotherhood of man in a League of Nations. But -what is that league? It is a combination of enemies, associated for the -purpose of crushing the German people and keeping her crushed. I, who -loved England and had no emnity against her even in war, cannot forgive -her now for her share in this peace. As a German I find it unforgivable, -because it perpetuates the spirit of hatred and thrusts us back into the -darkness where evil is bred.” - -“Do you agree with that?” I asked Brand. - -“On the whole, yes,” he said, gravely. “Mind you, I’m not against -punishing Germany. She had to be punished. But we are substituting slow -torture for just retribution, and like Franz I’m thinking of the effect -on the future. By generosity we should have made the world safe. By -vengeance we have prepared new strife. Europe will be given up to -anarchy and deluged in the blood of the boys who are now babes.” - -I had dinner with Brand’s people and found them “difficult.” Sir Amyas -Brand had Wickham’s outward hardness and none of his inner sensibility. -He was a stiff, pompous man who had done extremely well out of the war, -I guessed, by the manufacture of wooden huts, to which he attached a -patriotic significance, apart from his profits. He alluded to the death -of his younger son as his “sacrifice for the Empire,” though it seemed to -me that the boy Jack had been the real victim of sacrifice.. To Wickham -he behaved with an exasperating air of forgiveness, as to one who had -sinned and was physically and morally sick. - -“How do you think Wickham is looking?” he asked me at table, and when I -said, “Very well,” he sighed and shook his head. - -“The war was a severe nervous strain upon Mm. It has changed him sadly. -We try to be patient with him, poor lad.” - -Brand overheard his speech and flushed angrily. - -“I’m sorry I try your patience so severely, sir,” he said in a bitter, -ironical way. - -“Don’t let’s argue about it, dear lad,” said Sir Amyas Brand suavely. - -“No,” said Lady Brand plaintively, “you know argument is bad for you, -Wickham. You become so violent, dear.” - -“Besides,” said Ethel Brand, the daughter, in a low and resigned voice, -“what’s done can’t be undone.” - -“Meaning Elsa?” asked Wickham savagely. I could see that but for my -restraining presence as a stranger there was all the inflammable stuff -here for a first-class domestic “flare-up.” - -“What else?” asked Ethel coldly, and meeting her brother’s challenging -eyes with a perfectly steady gaze. She was a handsome girl with regular, -classical features and tight lips, as narrow-minded, I imagined, as a -mid-Victorian spinster in a cathedral town, and as hard as granite in -principle and prejudice. - -Wickham weakened after signs of an explosion of rage. He spoke gently, -and revealed a hope to which I think he clung desperately. - -“When Elsa comes you will all fall in love with her.” - -It was the worst thing he could have said, though he was unconscious of -his “gaffe.” - -His sister Ethel reddened, and I could see her mouth harden. - -“So far I have remarkably little love for Germans, male or female.” - -“I hope we shall behave with Christian charity,” said Lady Brand. - -Sir Amyas Brand coughed uneasily, and then tried to laugh off his -embarrassment for my benefit. - -“There will be considerable scandal in my constituency!” - -“To hell with that!” said Brand, irritably. “It’s about time the British -public returned to sanity.” - -“Ah!” said Sir Amyas, “there’s a narrow border-line between sanity, and -shell-shock. Really, it is distressing what a number of men seem to -come back with disordered nerves. All these crimes, all these cases of -violence----” - -It gave him a chance of repeating a leading article which he had -read that morning in _The Times_. It provided a conversation without -controversy until the end of dinner. - -In the hall, before I left, Wickham Brand laughed, rather miserably. - -“It’s not going to be easy! Elsa will find the climate rather cold here, -eh?” - -“She will win them over,” I said hopefully, and these words cheered him. - -“Why, yes, they’re bound to like her.” - -We arranged for the Paris trip two weeks later, but before then we -were sure to meet at Eileen O’Connor’s. As a matter of fact, we dined -together with “Daddy” Small next day, and Eileen was with him. - - - - -V - - -I found Eileen O’Connor refreshing and invigorating, so that it was -good to be in her company. Most people in England at that time, at least -those I met, were “nervy,” depressed, and apprehensive of evil to come. -There was hardly a family I knew who had not one vacant chair wherein a -boy had sat when he had come home from school or office, and afterwards -on leave. Their ghosts haunted these homes and were present in any -company where people gathered for conversation or distraction. The wound -to England’s soul was unhealed, and the men who came back had received -grave hurt, many of them, to their nervous and moral health. - -This Irish girl was beautifully gay, not with that deliberate and -artificial gaiety which filled London theatres and dancing halls, but -with ah inner flame of happiness. It was difficult to account for that. -She had seen much tragedy in Lille. Death and the agony of men had been -familiar to her. She had faced death herself, very closely, escaping, -as she said, by a narrow “squeak.” She had seen the brutality of war and -its welter of misery for men and women, and now in time of peace she -was conscious of the sufferings of many people, and did not hide these -things from her mental vision or cry, “All’s right with the world!” when -all was wrong. But something in her character, something, perhaps, -in her faith, enabled her to resist the pressure of all this “morbid -emotion” and to face it squarely, with smiling eyes. Another thing that -attracted one was her fearlessness of truth. At a time when most people -shrank from truth her candour was marvellous, with the simplicity of -childhood joined to the wisdom of womanhood. - -I saw this at the dinner-party for four arranged in her honour by -“Daddy” Small. That was given, for cheapness’ sake, at a little -old restaurant in Whitehall which provided a good dinner for a few -shillings, and in an “atmosphere” of old-fashioned respectability which -appealed to the little American. - -Eileen knocked Brand edgewise at the beginning of his dinner by -remarking about his German marriage. - -“The news came to me as a shock,” she said, and when Wickham raised his -eyebrows and looked both surprised and dismayed (he had counted on her -sympathy and help), she patted his hand as it played a devil’s tattoo on -the table-cloth, and launched into a series of indiscretions that fairly -made my hair curl. - -“Theoretically,” she said, “I hadn’t the least objection to your -marrying a German girl. I have always believed that love is an instinct -which is beyond the control of diplomats who arrange frontiers and -generals who direct wars. I saw a lot of it in Lille--and there was -Franz von Kreuzenach, who fell in love with me, poor child. What really -hurt me for a while was green-eyed jealousy.” - -“Daddy” Small laughed hilariously, and filled up Eileen’s glass with -Moselle wine. - -Brand looked blank. - -“Jealousy?” - -“Why, yes,” said Eileen. “Imagine me, an Irish girl, all soppy with -emotion at the first sight of English khaki (that’s a fantastic -situation anyhow!), after four years with the grey men, and then finding -that the first khaki tunic she meets holds the body of a man she knew as -a boy, when she used to pull his hair! And such a grave heroic-looking -man, Wicky! Why, I felt like one of Tennyson’s ladies released from her -dark tower by a Knight of the Round Tower. Then you went away and -married a German Gretchen! And all my doing, because if I hadn’t given -you a letter to Franz you wouldn’t have met Elsa. So when I heard the -news, I thought, ‘There goes my romance!’” - -“Daddy” Small laughed again, joyously. - -“Say, my dear,” he said, “you’re making poor old Wickham blush like an -Englishman asked to tell the story of his V.C. in public.” - -Brand laughed, too, in his harsh, deep voice. - -“Why, Eileen, you ought to have told me before I moved out of Lille.” - -“And where would maiden modesty have been?” asked Eileen, in her -humorous way. - -“Where is it now?” asked the little doctor. - -“Besides,” said Brand, “I had that letter to Franz von Kreuzenach in my -pocket. I don’t mind telling you I detested the fellow for his infernal -impudence in making love to you.” - -“Sure now, it was a one-sided affair, entirely,” said Eileen, -exaggerating her Irish accent, “but one has to be polite to a gentleman -that saves one’s life on account of a romantic passion. Oh, Wickham, -it’s very English you are!” - -Brand could find nothing to say for himself, and it was I who came to -the rescue of his embarrassment by dragging a red herring across the -thread of Eileen’s discourse. She had a wonderful way of saying things -that on most girls’ lips would have seemed audacious, or improper, or -‘high-falutin’, but on hers were natural with a simplicity which shone -through her. - -Her sense of humour played like a light about her words, yet beneath her -wit was a tenderness and a knowledge of tragic things. I remember some -of her sayings that night at dinner, and they seemed to me very good -then, though when put down they lose the deep melody of her voice and -the smile or sadness of her dark eyes. - -“England,” she said, “fought the war for liberty and the rights of small -nations, but said to Ireland, ‘Hush, keep quiet there, damn you, or -you’ll make us look ridiculous.’” - -“Irish soldiers,” she said, “helped England to win all her wars, but -mostly in Scottish regiments. When the poor boys wanted to carry an -Irish flag, Kitchener said, ‘Go to hell,’ and some of them went to -Flanders... and recruiting stopped with a snap.” - -“Now, how do you know these things?” asked “Daddy” Small. “Did Kitchener -go to Lille to tell you?” - -“No,” said Eileen, “but I found some of the Dublin boys in the prison at -Lille, and they told the truth before they died, and perhaps it was that -which killed them. That and starvation and German brutality.” - -“I believe you’re a Sinn Feiner,” said Dr. Small. “Why don’t you go to -Ireland and show your true colours, ma’am?” - -“I’m Sinn Fein all right,” said Eileen, “but I hated the look of a white -wall in Lille, and there are so many white walls in the little green -isle. So I’m stopping in Kensington and trying to hate the English, but -can’t because I love them.” - -She turned to Wickham and said: “Will you take me for a row in -Kensington Gardens the very next day the sun shines?” - -“Rather!” said Wickham, “on one condition!’ - -“And that?” - -“That you’ll be kind to my little Elsa when she comes.” - -“I’ll be a mother to her,” said Eileen, “but she must come quick or I’ll -be gone.” - -“Gone?” - -Wickham spoke with dismay in his voice. I think he had counted on Eileen -as his stand-by when Elsa would need a friend in England. - -“Hush now!” said “Daddy” Small. “It’s my secret, you wicked lady with -black eyes and a mystical manner.” - -“Doctor,” said Eileen, “your own President rebukes you. ‘Open covenants -openly arrived at--weren’t those his words for the new diplomacy?” - -“Would to God he had kept to them,” said the little doctor, bitterly, -launching into a denunciation of the Peace Conference until I cut him -short with a question. - -“What’s this secret, Doctor?” - -He pulled out his pocket-book with an air of mystery. - -“We’re getting on with the International League of Goodwill,” he said. -“It’s making more progress than the League of Nations. There are names -here that are worth their weight in gold. There are golden promises -which by the grace of God----” - -“Daddy” Small spoke solemnly--“will be fulfilled by golden deeds. -Anyhow, we’re going to get a move on--away from hatred towards charity, -not for the making of wounds but for the healing, not punishing the -innocent for the sins of the guilty, but saving the innocent--the Holy -Innocents--for the glory of life. Miss Eileen and others are going to -be the instruments of the machinery of mercy, rather, I should say, the -spirit of humanity.” - -“With you as our gallant leader,” said Eileen, patting his hand. - -“It sounds good,” said Brand. “Let’s hear some more.” - -Dr. Small told us more in glowing language, and in Biblical utterance -mixed with American slang like Billy Sunday’s Bible. He was profoundly -moved. He was filled with hope and gladness, and with a humble pride -because his efforts had borne fruit. - -The scheme was simple. From his friends in the United States he had -promises, as good as gold, of many millions of American dollars. From -English friends he had also considerable sums. With this treasure he -was going to Central Europe to organise relief on a big scale for the -children who were starving to death. Eileen O’Connor was to be his -private secretary and assistant-organiser. She would have heaps of work -to do, and she had graduated in the prisons and slums of Lille. They -were starting in a week’s time for Warsaw, Prague, Buda-Pesth and -Vienna. - -“Then,” said Brand, “Elsa will lose a friend.” - -“Bring her, too,” said Eileen. “There’s work for all.” - -Brand was startled by this, and a sudden light leapt into his eyes. - -“By Jove!... But I’m afraid not. That’s impossible.” - -So it was only a week we had with Eileen, but in that time we had some -good meetings and merry adventures. Brand and I rowed her on the lake in -Kensington Gardens, and she told us Irish fairy-tales as she sat in the -stem with her hat in her lap, and the wind playing in her brown hair. -We took her to the Russian Ballet and she wept a little at the beauty of -it. - -“After four years of war,” she said, “beauty is like water to a parched -soul. It’s so exquisite it hurts.” - -She took us one day into the Carmelite Church at - -Kensington, and Brand and I knelt each side of her, feeling sinners with -a saint between us. And then, less like a saint, she sang ribald little -songs on the way to her mother’s house in Holland Street, and said “Drat -the thing!” when she couldn’t find her key to unlock the door. - -“Sorry, Biddy my dear,” she said to the little maidservant who opened -the door. “I shall forget my head one day.” - -“Sure, Miss Eileen,” said the girl, “but never the dear heart of you, at -all, at all.” - -Eileen’s mother was a buxom, cheery, smiling Irishwoman who did not -worry, I fancy, about anything in the world, and was sure of heaven. -Her drawing-room was littered with papers and novels, some of which she -swept off the sofa with a careless hand. - -“Won’t you take a seat then?” - -I asked her whether she had not been anxious about her daughter when -Eileen was all those years under German rule. - -“Not at all,” said the lady. “I knew our dear Lord was as near to Lille -as to London.” - -Two of her boys had been killed in the war, “fighting,” she said, “for -an ungrateful country which keeps its heel on the neck of Ireland,” - and two were in the United States, working for the honour of Ireland on -American newspapers. Eileen’s two sisters had married during the war and -between them had given birth to four Sinn Feiners. Eileen’s father had -died a year ago, and almost his last word had been her name. - -“The dear man thought all the world of Eileen,” said Mrs. O’Connor. “I -was out of it entirely when he had, her by his side.” - -“You’ll be lonely,” said Brand, “when your daughter goes abroad again.” - -Eileen answered him. - -“Oh, you can’t keep me back by insidious remarks like that! Mother -spends most of her days in church, and the rest of them reading naughty -novels which keep her from ascending straight to heaven without the -necessity of dying first. She is never lonely because her spirit is in -touch with those she loves, in this world or the other. And isn’t that -the truth I’m after talking, mother o’ mine!” - -“I never knew more than one O’Connor who told the truth yet,” said the -lady, “and that’s yourself, my dear. And it’s a frightening way you have -with it that would scare the devil out of his skin.” - -They were pleasant hours with Eileen, and when she went away from -Charing Cross one morning with Dr. Small, five hospital nurses and two -Americans of the Red Cross, I wished with all my heart that Wickham -Brand had asked her and not Elsa von Kreuzenach to be his wife. That was -an idle wish, for the next morning Brand and I crossed over to France, -and on the way to Paris my friend told me that the thought of meeting -Elsa after those months of separation excited him so that each minute -seemed an hour. And as he told me that he lit a cigarette and I saw that -his hand was trembling, because of this nervous strain. - - - - -VI - - -We met Elsa at the Gare de l’Est in Paris the evening after our -arrival. Brand’s nervous anxiety had increased as the hour drew near, -and he smoked cigarette after cigarette while he paced up and down the -_Salle d’Attente_ as far as he could for the crowds which surged there. - -Once he spoke to me about his apprehensions. - -“I hope to God this will work out all right.... I’m only thinking of her -happiness.” - -Another time he said: “This French crowd would tear her to pieces if -they knew she was German.” - -While we were waiting we met a friend of old times. I was first to -recognise Pierre Nesle, who had been attached to us as interpreter and -_liaison_ officer. He was in civil clothes and was wearing a bowler -hat and a light overcoat, so that his transformation was astonishing. I -touched him on the arm as he made his way quickly through the crowd, and -he turned sharply and stared at me as though he could not place me at -all. Then a look of recognition leapt into his eyes and he grasped both -my hands delightedly. He was still thin and pale, but some of his old -melancholy had gone out of his eyes and in its place there was an eager, -purposeful look. - -“Here’s Brand,” I said. “He’ll be glad to see you again.” - -“_Quelle chance!_” exclaimed Pierre, and he made a dash for his friend -and before Brand could remonstrate kissed him on both cheeks. They had -been good comrades and after the rescue of Marthe from the mob in Lille -it was to Brand that Pierre Nesle had opened his heart and revealed his -agony. He could not stay long with us in the station as he was going -to some political meeting, and perhaps it was well, because Brand was -naturally anxious to escape from him before Elsa came. - -“I am working hard--speaking, writing, organising--on behalf of the -_Ligue des Tranchées_,” said Pierre. “You must come and see me at -my office. It’s the headquarters of the new movement in France. -Anti-militarist, to fulfil the ideals of the men who fought to end war.” - -“You’re going to fight against heavy odds,” said Brand. “Clemenceau -won’t love you, nor those who like his peace.” - -Pierre laughed and used an old watchword of the war. - -“_Nous les aurons!_ Those old dead-heads belong to the past. Peace has -still to be made by the men who fought for a new world.” - -He gave us his address, pledged us to call on him, and slipped into the -vortex of the crowd. - -Brand and I waited another twenty minutes, and then in a tide of new -arrivals we saw Elsa. She was in the company of Major Quin, Brand’s -friend who had brought her from Cologne, a tall Irishman who stooped a -little as he gave his arm to the girl. She was dressed in a blue coat -and skirt, very neatly, and it was the glitter of her spun-gold hair -that made me catch sight of her quickly in the crowd. Her eyes had a -frightened look as she came forward, and she was white to the lips. -Thinner, too, than when I had seen her last, so that she looked older -and not, perhaps, quite so wonderfully pretty. But her face lighted up -with intense gladness when Brand stood in front of her, and then, under -an electric lamp, with a crowd surging around him, took her in his arms. - -Major Quin and I stood aloof, chatting together. - -“Good journey?” I asked. - -“Excellent, but I’m glad it’s over. That little lady is too unmistakably -German. Everybody spotted her and looked unutterable things. She was -frightened, and I don’t wonder. Most of them thought the worst of me. I -had to threaten one fellow with a damned good hiding for an impertinent -remark I overheard.” - -Brand thanked him for looking after his wife, and Elsa gave him her hand -and said, “_Danke schön_.” - -Major Quin raised his finger and said, “Hush. Don’t forget you’re in -Paris now.” - -Then he saluted with a click of spurs and took his leave. I put Brand -and his wife in a taxi and drove outside by the driver to a quiet old -hotel in the Rue St. Honoré, where we had booked rooms. - -When we registered, the manager at the desk stared at Elsa curiously. -She spoke English, but with an unmistakable accent. The man’s courtesy -to Brand, which had been perfect, fell from him abruptly and he spoke -with icy insolence when he summoned one of the boys to take up the -baggage. In the dining-room that night all eyes turned to Elsa and -Brand, with inquisitive, hostile looks. I suppose her frock, simple and -ordinary as it seemed to me, proclaimed its German fashion. Or perhaps -her face and hair were not so English as I had imagined. It was a little -while before the girl herself was aware of those unpleasant glances -about her. She was very happy sitting next to Brand, whose hand she -caressed once or twice, and into whose face she looked with adoration. -She was still very pale, and I could see that she was immensely tired -after her journey, but her eyes shone wonderfully. Sometimes she -looked about her and encountered the stares of people--elderly French -_bourgeois_ and some English nurses and a few French officers--dining -at other tables in the great room with gilt mirrors and painted ceiling. -She spoke to Brand presently in a low voice. - -“I am afraid. These people stare at me so much. They guess what I am.” - -“It’s only your fancy,” said Brand. “Besides, they would be fools not to -stare at a face like yours.” - -She smiled and coloured up at that sweet flattery. - -“I know when people like one’s looks. It is not for that reason they -stare.” - -“Ignore them,” said Brand. “Tell me about Franz and Frau von Detmold.” - -It was unwise of him to sprinkle his conversation with German names. -The waiter at our table was listening attentively. Presently I saw him -whispering behind the screen to one of his comrades and looking our way -sullenly. - -He kept us waiting an unconscionable time for coffee, and when at last -Brand gave his arm to Elsa and led her from the room, he gave a harsh -laugh as they passed, and I heard the words, “_Sale Boche!_” spoken in -a low tone of voice, yet loud enough for all the room to hear. From all -the little tables there came titters of laughter and those words, “_Sale -Boche!_” were repeated by several voices. I hoped that Elsa and Brand -had not heard, but I saw Elsa sway a little on her husband’s arm as -though struck by an invisible blow, and Brand turned with a look of -passion, as though he would hit the waiter or challenge the whole room -to warfare. But Elsa whispered to him, and he went with her up the -staircase to their rooms. - -The next morning when I met them at breakfast Elsa still looked -desperately tired, though very happy, and Brand had lost a little of -his haggard look and his nerve was steadier. But it was an uncomfortable -moment for all of us when the manager came to the table and regretted -with icy courtesy that their rooms would not be available another night -owing to a previous arrangement which he had unfortunately overlooked. - -“Nonsense!” said Brand, shortly. “I have taken these rooms for three -nights, and I intend to stay in them.” - -“It is impossible,” said the manager. “I must ask you to have your -baggage packed by twelve o’clock.” - -Brand dealt with him firmly. - -“I am an English officer. If I hear another word from you I will call on -the Provost Marshal and get him to deal with you.” - -The manager bowed. This threat cowed him, and he said no more about -a change of rooms. But Brand and his wife, and I, as their friend, -suffered from a policy of passive resistance to our presence. The -chambermaid did not answer their bell, having become strangely deaf. - -The waiter was generally engaged at other tables whenever we wanted him. -The hall porter turned his back upon us. The page-boys made grimaces -behind our backs, as I saw very well in the gilt mirror, and as Elsa -saw. - -They took to having their meals out, Brand insisting always that I -should join them, and we drove out to the Bois and had tea there in the -_Chalet des Iles_. It was a beautiful afternoon in September, and the -leaves were just turning to crinkled gold and the lake was as blue -as the cloudless sky above. Across the ferry came boatloads of young -Frenchmen with their girls, singing, laughing, on this day of peace. -Some of the men limped as they came up the steps from the landing-stage. -One walked on crutches. Another had an empty sleeve. Under the trees -they made love to their girls and fed them with rose-tinted ices. - -“These people are happy,” said Elsa. “They have forgotten already the -agony of war. Victory is healing. In Germany there is only misery.” - -A little later she talked about the peace. - -“If only the _Entente_ had been more generous in victory our despair -would not be so great. Many of us, great multitudes, believed that the -price of defeat would be worth paying because Germany would take a place -among free nations and share in the creation of a nobler world. Now we -are crushed by the militarism of nations who have used our downfall to -increase their own power. The light of a new ideal which rose above the -darkness has gone out.” - -Brand took his wife’s hand and stroked it in his big paw. - -“All this is temporary and the work of the old men steeped in the old -traditions which led to war. We must wait for them to die. Then out of -the agony of the world’s boyhood will come the new revelation.” - -Elsa clasped her hands and leaned forward, looking across the lake in -the Bois de Boulogne. - -“I would like to live long enough to be sure of that,” she said, -eagerly. “If we have children, my husband, perhaps they will listen to -our tales of the war as Franz and I read about wolves and goblins in our -fairy-tales. The fearfulness of them was not frightening, for we knew we -were safe.” - -“God grant that,” said Brand, gravely. - -“But I am afraid!” said Elsa. She looked again across the lake, so blue -under the sky, so golden in sunlight; and shivered a little. - -“You are cold!” said Brand. - -He put his arms about her as they sat side by side, and her head drooped -upon his shoulder and she closed her eyes like a tired child. - -They went to the opera that night and I refused their invitation to join -them, protesting that they would never learn to know each other if a -third person were always present. I slipped away to see Pierre Nesle, -and found him at an office in a street somewhere off the Rue du Louvre, -which was filled with young men whose faces I seemed to have seen before -under blue shrapnel helmets above blue tunics. They were typewriting as -though serving machine-guns, and folding up papers while they whistled -the tune of “_Madelon_.” Pierre was in his shirtsleeves, dictating -letters to a _poilu_ in civil clothes. - -“Considerable activity on the western front, eh?” he said when he saw -me. - -“Tell me all about it, Pierre.” - -He told me something about it in a restaurant where we dined in the -Rue du Marché St. Honoré. He was one of the organising secretaries of -a society made up exclusively of young soldiers who had fought in the -trenches. There was a sprinkling of intellectuals among them--painters, -poets, novelists, journalists--but the main body were simple soldiers -animated by one idea--to prevent another war by substituting the -common-sense and brotherhood of peoples for the old diplomacy of secret -alliances and the old tradition of powerful armies. - -“How about the Peace Treaty and the League of Nations?” I asked. - -Pierre Nesle shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. - -“The Peace Treaty belongs to the Napoleonic tradition. We’ve got beyond -that now. It is the programme that has carefully arranged another and -inevitable war. Look at the world now! Look at France, Italy, Germany, -Austria! We are all ruined together, and those most ruined will, by -their disease and death, drag down Europe into general misery. _Mon -vieux_, what has victory given to France! A great belt of devastated -country, cemeteries crowded with dead youth, bankruptcy, and everything -five times the cost of pre-war rates. Another such victory will wipe us -off the map. We have smashed Germany, it is true, for a time. We have -punished her women and children for the crimes of their war lords, but -can we keep her crushed? Are our frontiers impregnable against the time -when her people come back for revenge, smashing the fetters we have -placed on them, and rising again in strength? For ten years, for twenty -years, for thirty years perhaps, we shall be safe. And after that, if -the heart of Europe does not change, if we do not learn wisdom from the -horror that has passed, France will be ravaged again, and all that we -have seen our children will see, and their suffering will be greater -than ours, and they will not have the hope we had.” - -He stared back into the past, not a very distant past, and I fancy that -among the figures he saw was Marthe, his sister. - -“What’s the remedy?” I asked. - -“A union of democracy across the frontiers of hate,” he answered, and I -think it was a phrase that he had written and learnt by heart. - -“A fine phrase!” I said, laughing a little. - -He flared up at me. - -“It’s more than a phrase. It’s the heart-beat of millions in Europe.” - -“In France?” I asked pointedly. “In the France of Clemenceau?” - -“More than you imagine,” he answered, boldly. “Beneath our present -Chauvinism, our natural exultation in victory, our inevitable hatred of -the enemy, common-sense is at work, and an idealism higher than that. -At present its voice is not heard. The old men are having their day. -Presently the new men will arrive with the new ideas. They are here, but -do not speak yet.” - -“The old men again!” I said. “It is strange. In Germany, in France, in -England, even in America, people are talking strangely about the old men -as though they were guilty of all this agony. That is remarkable.” - -“They were guilty,” said Pierre Nesle. “It is against the old men in all -countries of Europe that youth will declare war. For it was their ideas -which brought us to our ruin.” - -He spoke so loudly that people in the restaurant turned to look at him. -He paid his bill and spoke in a lower voice. - -“It is dangerous to talk like this in public. Let us walk up the Champs -Elysées, where I am visiting some friends.” - -Suddenly a remembrance came back to him. - -“Your friends, too,” he said. - -“My friends?” - -“But yes; Madame Chéri and Hélène. After Edouard’s death they could not -bear to live in Lille.” - -“Edouard, that poor boy who came back? He is dead?” - -“He was broken by the prison life,” said Pierre. “He died within a month -of armistice, and Hélène wept her heart out. He confided a secret to me. -Hélène and he had come to love each other, and would marry when they -could get her mother’s consent--or, one day, if not.” - -“What’s her objection?” I asked. “Why, it’s splendid to think that -Hélène and you will be man and wife. The thought of it makes me feel -good.” - -He pressed my arm and said, “_Merci, mille fois, mon cher_.” - -Madame Chéri objected to his political opinions. She regarded them as -poisonous treachery. - -“And Hélène?” - -I remembered that outburst, months back, when Hélène had desired the -death of many German babies. - -“Hélène loves me,” said Pierre simply. “We do not talk politics.” - -On our way to the Avenue Victor Hugo I ventured to ask him a question -which had been a long time in my mind “Your sister, Marthe? She is -well?” - -Even in the pearly twilight of the Champs Elysées I was aware of -Pierre’s sudden change of colour. I had touched a nerve that still -jumped. - -“She is well and happy,” he answered gravely. “She is now a -_religieuse_, a nun, in the convent at Lille. They tell me she is a -saint. Her name in religion is _Sour Angélique._” - -I called on Madame Chéri and her daughter with Pierre Nesle. They seemed -delighted to see me, and Hélène greeted me like an old and trusted -friend, giving me the privilege of kissing her cheek. She had grown -taller and beautiful, and there was a softness in her eyes when she -looked at Pierre which made me sure of his splendid luck. - -Madame Chéri had aged, and some of her fire had burnt out. I guessed -that it was due to Edouard’s death. She spoke of that, and wept a -little, and deplored the mildness of the Peace Treaty which had not -punished the evil race who had killed her husband and her boy and the -flower of France. - -“There are many German dead,” said Pierre. “They have been punished.” - -“Not enough!” cried Madame Chéri. “They should all be dead.” - -Hélène kissed her hand and snuggled down to her as once I had seen in -Lille. - -“_Petite maman_,” she said, “let us talk of happy things to-night. Pierre -has brought us a good friend.” - -Later in the evening, when Pierre and Hélène had gone into another room -to find some biscuits for our wine, Madame Chéri spoke to me about their -betrothal. - -“Pierre is full of strange and terrible ideas,” she said. “They are -shared by other young men who fought bravely for France. To me they -seem wicked, and the talk of cowards, except that their medals tell of -courage. But the light in Hélène’s eyes weakens me. I’m too much of a -Frenchwoman to be stern with love.” - -By those words of hers I was able to give Pierre a message of good-cheer -when he walked back with me that night, and he went away with gladness. - -With gladness also did Elsa Brand set out next day for England where, as -a girl, she had known happy days, and where now her dream lived with the -man who stood beside her. Together we watched for the white cliffs, and -when suddenly the sun glinted on them she gave a little cry, and putting -her hand through Brand’s arm, said, “Our home!” - - - - -VII - - -I saw very little of Brand in London after Elsa’s arrival in his -parent’s house at Chelsea. I was busy, as usual, watching the way of the -world and putting my nose down to bits of blank paper which I proceeded -to spoil with futile words. Brand was doing the same thing in his study -on the top floor of the house in Cheyne Walk, while Elsa, in true German -style, was working embroidery or reading English literature to improve -her mind and her knowledge of the language. - -Brand was endeavouring strenuously to earn money enough to make him free -of his father’s house. He failed, on the whole, rather miserably. He -began a novel on the war, became excited with it for the first six -chapters, then stuck hopelessly and abandoned it. - -“I find it impossible,” he wrote to me, “to get the real thing into my -narrative. It is all wooden, unnatural, and wrong. I can’t get the right -perspective on paper, although I think I see it clear enough when I’m -not writing. The thing is too enormous, the psychology too complicated -for my power of expression. A thousand characters, four years of -experience, come crowding into my mind, and I can’t eliminate the -unessential and stick the point of my pen into the heart of truth. -Besides, the present state of the world, to say nothing of domestic -trouble, prevents anything like concentration... And my nerves have gone -to hell.” - -After the abandonment of his novel he took to writing articles for -magazines and newspapers, some of which appeared, thereby producing -some useful guineas. I read them and liked their strength of style and -intensity of emotion. But they were profoundly pessimistic, and “the -gloomy Dean,” who was prophesying woe, had an able seconder in Wickham -Brand, who foresaw the ruin of civilisation and the downfall of the -British Empire because of the stupidity of the world’s leaders and the -careless ignorance of the multitudes. He harped too much on the same -string, and I fancied that editors would soon begin to tire of his -melancholy tune. I was right. - -“I have had six articles rejected in three weeks,” wrote Brand. “People -don’t want the truth. They want cheery insincerity. Well, they won’t get -it from me, though I starve to death.... But it’s hard on Elsa. She’s -having a horrible time, and her nerve is breaking. I wish to God I could -afford to take her down to the country somewhere, away from spiteful -females and their cunning cruelty. Have you seen any Christian charity -about in this most Christian country? If so, send me word, and I’ll walk -to it on my knees, from Chelsea.” - -It was in a postscript to a letter about a short story he was writing -that he wrote an alarming sentence. - -“I think Elsa is dying. She gets weaker every day.” Those words sent -me to Chelsea in a hurry. I had been too careless of Brand’s troubles, -owing to my own pressure of work and my own fight with a nervous -depression which was a general malady, I found, with most men back from -the war. - -When I rapped the brass knocker on the house in Cheyne Walk the door -was opened by a different maid from the one I had seen on my first visit -there. The other one, as Brand told me afterwards, had given notice -because “she couldn’t abide them Huns” (meaning Elsa), and with her had -gone the cook, who had been with Wickham’s mother for twenty years. - -Brand was writing in his study upstairs when the new maid showed me in. -Or, rather, he was leaning over a writing-block, with his elbows dug -into the table and his face in his hands, while an unlighted pipe--his -old trench pipe--lay across the inkpot. - -“Thinking out a new plot, old man?” I asked cheerily. - -“It doesn’t come,” he said. “My own plot cuts across my line of -thought.” - -“How’s Elsa?” - -He pointed with the stem of his pipe to the door leading from his room. - -“Sleeping, I hope.... Sit down and let’s have a yarn.” - -We talked about things in general for a time. They were not very -cheerful, anyhow. Brand and I were both gloomy souls just then, and knew -each other too well to camouflage our views about the state of Europe -and the “unrest” (as it was called) in England. - -Then he told me about Elsa, and it was a tragic tale From the very first -his people had treated her with a studied unkindness which had broken -her nerve and spirit. She had come to England with a joyous hope of -finding happiness and friendship with her husband’s family, and glad to -escape from the sadness of Germany and the solemn disapproval of her own -people, apart from Franz, who was devoted to her. - -Her first dismay came when she kissed the hand of her mother-in-law, -who drew it away as though she had been stung by a wasp, and when her -movement to kiss her husband’s sister Ethel was repulsed by a girl who -drew back icily and said, “How do you do?” - -Even then she comforted herself a little with the thought that this -coldness was due to English reserve, and that in a little while English -kindness would be revealed. But the days passed with only unkindness. - -At first Lady Brand and her daughter maintained a chilly silence towards -Elsa, at breakfast, luncheon, and other meals, talking to each other -brightly, as though she did not exist, and referring constantly to -Wickham as “poor Wicky.” Ethel had a habit of reading out morsels from -the penny illustrated papers, and often they referred to “another trick -of the Huns” or “fresh revelations of Hun treachery.” At these times Sir -Amyas Brand said “Ah!” in a portentous voice, but, privately, with some -consciousness of decency, begged Ethel to desist from “controversial -topics.” She “desisted” in the presence of her brother, whose violence -of speech scared her into silence. - -A later phase of Ethel’s hostility to Elsa was in the style of amiable -enquiry. In a simple, childlike way, as though eager for knowledge, -she would ask Elsa such questions as “Why the Germans boiled down their -dead?” - -“Why they crucified Canadian prisoners?” - -“Was it true that German school children sang the Hymn of Hate before -morning lessons?” - -“Was it by order of the Kaiser that English prisoners were starved to -death?” - -Elsa answered all these questions by passionate denials. It was a -terrible falsehood, she said, that the Germans had boiled down bodies -for fats. On the contrary, they paid the greatest reverence to their -dead, as her brother had seen in many cemeteries on the Western front. -The story of the “crucified Canadians” had been disproved by the English -intelligence officers after a special enquiry, as Wickham had told her. -She had never heard the Hymn of Hate. Some of the English prisoners -had been harshly treated--there were brutal commandants--but not -deliberately starved. Not starved more than German soldiers, who had -very little food during the last years of the war. - -“But surely,” said Lady Brand, “you must admit, my dear, that Germany -conducted this war with the greatest possible barbarity? Otherwise, why -should the world call them Huns?” - -Elsa said it was only the English who called the Germans - -Huns, and that was for a propaganda of hatred which was very wicked. - -“Do _I_ look like a Hun?” she asked, and then burst into tears. - -Lady Brand was disconcerted by that sign of weakness. - -“You mustn’t think us unkind, Elsa, but, of course, we have to uphold -the truth.” - -Ethel was utterly unmoved by Elsa’s tears, and, indeed, found a holy -satisfaction in them. - -“When the German people confess their guilt with weeping and lamentation -the English will be first to forgive. Never till then.” - -The presence of a German girl in the house seemed to act as a blight -upon all domestic happiness. It was the cook who first “gave notice.” - Elsa had never so much as set eyes upon that cross-eyed woman -below-stairs who had prepared the family food since Wickham had sat in -a high chair with a bib round his neck. But Mary, in a private interview -with Lady Brand, stormy in its character, as Elsa could hear through the -folding doors, vowed that she would not live in the same house with “one -of those damned Germings.” - -Lady Brand’s tearful protestations that Elsa was no longer German, being -“Mr. Wickham’s wife,” and that she had repented sincerely of all the -wrong done by the country in which she had unfortunately been born, did -not weaken the resolution of Mary Grubb, whose patriotism had always -been “above suspicion,” “which,” as she said, “I hope to remain so.” She -went next morning, after a great noise of breathing and the descent of -tin boxes, while Lady Brand and Ethel looked with reproachful eyes at -Elsa as the cause of this irreparable blow. - -The parlour-maid followed in a week’s time, on the advice of her young -man, who had worked in a canteen of the Y.M.C.A. at Boulogne and knew -all about German spies. - -It was very awkward for Lady Brand, who assumed an expression of -Christian martyrdom, and told Wickham that his rash act was bearing sad -fruit, a mixed metaphor which increased his anger, as he told me, to a -ridiculous degree. - -He could see that Elsa was very miserable. Many times she wept when -alone with him, and begged him to take her away to a little home of -their own, even if it were only one room in the poorest neighbourhood. -But Wickham was almost penniless, and begged her to be patient a little -longer, until he had saved enough to fulfil their hope. There I think -he was unwise. It would have been better for him to borrow money--he had -good friends--rather than keep his wife in such a hostile atmosphere. -She was weak and ill. He was alarmed at her increasing weakness. Once -she fainted in his arms, and even to go upstairs to their rooms at the -top of the house tired her so much that afterwards she would lie back in -a chair, with her eyes closed, looking very white and worn. She tried to -hide her ill-health from her husband, and when they were alone together -she seemed gay and happy, and would have deceived him but for those fits -of weeping at the unkindness of his mother and sister, and those sudden -attacks of “tiredness” when all physical strength departed from her. - -Her love for him seemed to grow with the weakness of her body. She could -not bear him to leave her alone for any length of time, and while he -was writing, sat near him, so that she might have her head against his -shoulder or touch his hand, or kiss it. It was not conducive to easy -writing or the invention of plots. - -Something like a crisis happened after a painful scene in the -drawing-room downstairs on a day when Brand had gone out to walk off a -sense of deadly depression which prevented all literary effort. - -Several ladies had come to tea with Lady Brand and Ethel, and they gazed -at Elsa as though she were a strange and dangerous animal. - -One of them, a thin and elderly schoolmistress, cross-questioned Elsa as -to her nationality. - -“I suppose you are Swedish, my dear?” she said sweetly. - -“No,” said Elsa. - -“Danish, then, no doubt?” continued Miss Clutter. - -“I am German,” said Elsa. - -That announcement had caused consternation among Lady Brand’s guests. -Two of the ladies departed almost immediately. The others stayed to see -how Miss Clutter would deal with this amazing situation. - -She dealt with it firmly, and with the cold intelligence of a high -schoolmistress. - -“How _very_ interesting!” she said, turning to Lady Brand. “Perhaps your -daughter-in-law will enlighten us a little about German psychology which -we have found so puzzling. I should be so glad if she could explain to -us how the German people reconcile the sinking of merchant ships, the -unspeakable crime of the _Lusitania_ with any belief in God, or even -with the principles of our common humanity. It is a mystery to me how -the drowning of babies could be regarded as legitimate warfare by a -people proud of their civilisation.” - -“Perhaps it would be better to avoid controversy, dear Miss Clutter,” - said Lady Brand, alarmed at the prospect of an “unpleasant” scene which -would be described in other drawing-rooms next day. - -But Miss Clutter had adopted Ethel’s method of enquiry. She so much -wanted to know the German point of view. Certainly they must have a -point of view. - -“Yes, it would be so interesting to know!” said another lady. - -“Especially if we could believe it,” said another. - -Elsa had been twisting and re-twisting a little lace handkerchief in her -lap. She was very pale, and tried to conceal a painful agitation from -all these hostile and enquiring ladies. - -Then she spoke to them in a low, strained voice. - -“You will never understand,” she said. “You look out from England with -eyes of hate, and without pity in your hearts. The submarine warfare -was shameful. There were little children drowned on the _Lusitania_, and -women. I wept for them and prayed the dear God to stop the war. Did you -weep for our little children and our women? They, too, were killed by -sea warfare, not only a few, as on the _Lusitania_, but thousands and -tens of thousands. Your blockade closed us in with an iron ring. No -ship could bring us food. For two years we starved on short rations and -chemical foods. We were without fats and milk. Our mothers watched their -children weaken and wither and die, because of the English blockade. -Their own milk dried up within their breasts. Little coffins were -carried down our streets day after day, week after week. Fathers and -mothers were mad at the loss of their little ones. ‘We must smash -our way through the English blockade!’ they said. The U-boat warfare -gladdened them. It seemed a chance of rescue for the children of -Germany. It was wicked. But all the war was wickedness. It was wicked -of you English to keep up your blockade so long after Armistice, so that -more children died and more women were consumptive, and men fainted at -their work. Do you reconcile that with God’s good love? Oh, I find -more hatred here in England than I knew even in Germany. It is -cruel, unforgiving, unfair! You, are proud of your own virtue and -hypocritical. God will be kinder to my people than to you, because now -we cry out for His mercy, and you are still arrogant, with the name of -God on your lips but a devil of pride in your hearts. I came here -with my dear husband believing that many English would be like him, -forgiving, hating cruelty, eager to heal the world’s broken heart. You -are not like him. You are cruel and lovers of cruelty, even to one poor -German girl who came to you for shelter with her English man. I am sorry -for you. I pity you because of your narrowness. I do not want to know -you.” - -She stood up, swaying a little, with one hand on the mantelpiece, as -afterwards she told her husband. She did not believe that she could -cross the floor without falling. There was a strange dizziness in her -head, and a mist before her eyes. But she held her head high and walked -out of the drawing-room, and then upstairs. When Wickham Brand came back -she was lying on her bed very ill. He sent for a doctor who was with her -for half-an-hour. - -“She is very weak,” he said. “No pulse to speak of. You will have to be -careful of her--deuced careful.” - -He gave no name to her illness. “Just weakness,” he said. “Run down like -a worn-out clock. Nerves all wrong, and no vitality.” - -He sent round a tonic which Elsa took like a child, and for a little -while it seemed to do her good. But Brand was frightened because her -weakness had come back. - -I am glad now that I had an idea which helped Brand in this time of -trouble and gave Elsa some weeks of happiness and peace. It occurred to -me that young Harding was living alone in his big old country house near -Weybridge, and would be glad and grateful, because of his loneliness, to -give house-room to Brand and his wife. He had a great liking for Brand, -as most of us had, and his hatred of Germany had not been so violent -since his days in Cologne. His good nature, anyhow, and the fine -courtesy which was the essential quality of his character, would make -him kind to Elsa, so ill and so desperately in need of kindness. I was -not disappointed. When I spoke to him over the telephone he said, “It -will be splendid for me. This lonely house is getting on my nerves -badly. Bring them down.” - -I took them down in a car two days later. It was a fine autumn day -with a sparkle in the air and a touch of frost on the hedgerows. Elsa, -wrapped up in heavy rugs, lay back next to Brand, and a little colour -crept back into her cheeks and brought back her beauty. I think a shadow -lifted from her as she drove away from that house in Chelsea where she -had dwelt with enmity among her husband’s people. - -Harding’s house in Surrey was at the end of a fine avenue of beeches, -glorious in their autumn foliage of crinkled gold. A rabbit scuttled -across the drive as we came, and bobbed beneath the red bracken of the -undergrowth. - -“Oh,” said Elsa, like a child, “there is Peterkin! What a rogue he -looks!” - -Her eyes were bright when she caught sight of Harding’s house in the -Elizabethan style of post-and-plaster splashed with scarlet where the -Virginia creeper straggled on its walls. - -“It is wonderfully English,” she said. “How Franz would love this -place!” - -Harding came down from the steps to greet us, and I thought it noble of -him that he should kiss the girl’s hand when Brand said, “This is Elsa.” - For Harding had been a Hun-hater--you remember his much-repeated phrase, -“No good German but a dead German!”--and that little act was real -chivalry to a woman of the enemy. - -There was a great fire of logs burning in the open hearth in the hall, -flinging a ruddy glare on the panelled walls and glinting on bits of -armour and hunting trophies. Upstairs, also, Brand told me, there was a -splendid fire in Elsa’s room, which had once been the room of Harding’s -wife. It wanned Elsa not only in body but in soul. Here was an English -welcome and kindness of thought. On her dressing-table there were -flowers from Harding’s hot-houses, and she gave a little cry of pleasure -at the sight of them for there had been no flowers in Cheyne Walk, -Chelsea. That night she was strong enough to come down to dinner, -and looked very charming there at the polished board, fit only by -candlelight, whose soft rays touched the gold of her hair. - -“It is a true English home,” she said, glancing up at the panelled walls -and at portraits of Harding’s people in old-fashioned costumes which -hung there. - -“A lonely one when no friends are here,” said Harding, and that was the -only time he referred in any way to the wife who had left him. - -That dinner was the last one which Elsa had sitting at table with -us. She became very tired again. So tired that Brand had to carry her -upstairs and downstairs, which he did as though she weighed no more than -a child. During the day she lay on a sofa in the drawing-room, and Brand -did no writing now nor any kind of work, but stayed always with his -wife. For hours together he sat by her side, and she held his hand and -touched his face and hair, and was happy in her love. - -A good friend came to stay with them and brought unfailing cheerfulness. -It was Charles Fortune who had come down at Harding’s invitation. He was -as comical as ever, and made Elsa laugh with ripples of merriment while -he satirised the world as he knew it, with shrewd and penetrating wit. -He played the jester industriously to get that laughter from her, though -sometimes she had to beg of him not to make her laugh so much because -it hurt her. Then he played the piano late into the afternoon, until the -twilight in the room faded into darkness except for the ruddy glow of -the log fire, or after dinner in the evenings until Brand carried his -wife to bed. He played Chopin best, with a magic touch, but Elsa liked -him to play Bach and Schumann, and sometimes Mozart, because that -brought back her girlhood in the days before the war. - -So it was one evening when Brand sat on a low stool by the sofa on -which Elsa lay, with her fingers playing in his hair or resting on his -shoulder, while Fortune filled the room with melody. - -Once or twice Elsa spoke to Brand in a low voice. I heard some of her -words as I lay on a bearskin by the fire. - -“I am wonderfully happy, my dear,” she said once, and Brand pulled her -hand down and kissed it. - -A little later she spoke again. - -“Love is so much better than hate. Then why should people go to war?” - -“God knows, my dear,” said Brand. - -It was some time after that, when Fortune was playing softly, that I -heard Elsa give a big, tired sigh and say the word “Peace!” - -Charles Fortune played something of Beethoven’s now, with grand crashing -chords which throbbed through the room as the last glow of the sunset -flushed through the windows. - -Suddenly Brand stirred on his stool, made an abrupt movement, then rose -and gave a loud, agonising cry. Fortune stopped playing with a slur -of notes. Harding leapt up from his chair in a dark corner and said, -“Brand!... what’s the matter?” - -Brand had dropped to his knees and was weeping with, his arms about his -dead wife. - - - - -VIII - - -I was again a wanderer in the land, and going from country to country -in Europe saw the disillusionment that had followed victory, and the -despair that had followed defeat, and the ravages that were bequeathed -by war to peace, not only in devastated earth and stricken towns, but in -the souls of men and women. - -The victors had made great promises to their people, but for the most -part they were still unredeemed. They had promised them rich fruits of -victory to be paid out of the ruin of their enemies. But little fruit of -gold or treasure could be gathered from the utter bankruptcy of Germany -and Austria, whose factories stayed idle for lack of raw material and -whose money was waste paper in value of exchange. “Reconstruction” was -the watchword of statesmen, uttered as a kind of magic spell, but when -I went over the old battlefields in France I found no sign of -reconstruction, but only the vast belt of desolation which in war I had -seen swept by fire. No spell-word had built up those towns and villages -which had been blown into dust and ashes, nor had given life to riven -trees and earth choked and deadened by high explosives. Here and there -poor families had crept back to the place where their old homes had -stood, grubbing in the ruins for some relic of their former habitations -and building wooden shanties in the desert as frail shelters against the -wind and the rain. In Ypres--the city of Great Death--there were wooden -_estaminets_ for the refreshment of tourists who came from Paris to see -the graveyard of youth, and girls sold picture-postcards where boys -of ours had gone marching up the Menin Road under storms of shell-fire -which took daily toll of them. No French statesman by optimistic words -could resurrect in a little while the beauty that had been in Artois and -Picardy and the fields of Champagne. - -On days of national thanksgiving the spirit of France was exalted by the -joy of victory. In Paris it was a feverish joy, wild-eyed, with laughing -ecstasy, with troops of dancing girls and a carnival that broke all -bounds between Montmartre and Montparnasse. France had saved herself -from death. She had revenged herself for 1870 and the years just passed. -She had crushed the enemy that had always been a brutal menace across -the frontier. She had her sword deep in the heart of Germany which lay -bleeding at her feet. - -I who love France with a kind of passion, and had seen during the years -of war the agony and the heroism of her people, did not begrudge them -their ecstasy, and it touched my spirit with its fire so that in France -I could see and understand the French point of view, of ruthlessness -towards the beaten foe. But I saw also what many people of France saw -slowly, but with a sense of fear, that the treaty made by Clemenceau did -not make them safe except for a little while. This had not been, after -all, “the war to end war.” There was no guarantee of world-peace. Their -frontiers were not made impregnable against the time when the Germans -might grow strong again and come back for vengeance. They could not -stand alone, but must make new alliances, new secret treaties, new -armies, new armaments, because hate survived, and the League of Nations -was a farce, as it had come from the table at Versailles. - -They looked round and counted their cost--a million and a half dead. A -multitude of maimed and blind and nerve-shocked men. A birth-rate that -had sunk to zero. A staggering debt which they could not pay. A cost of -living which mounted higher and ever higher. A sense of revolt among the -soldiers who had come back because their reward for four years of misery -was no more than miserable. - -So it was in Italy, stricken by a more desperate poverty, disappointed -by a lack of spoil, angry with a sense of “betrayal,” afraid of -revolution, exultant when a mad poet seized the port of Fiume which had -been denied to her by President Wilson and his conscience. - -Across the glittering waters of the Adriatic I went to Trieste and found -it a dead port with Italian officers in possession of its deserted -docks and abandoned warehouses and Austrians dying of typhus in the back -streets, and starving to death in tenement houses. - -And then, across the new State of Jugo-Slavia, cut out of the body of -the old Austrian Empire now lying dismembered, I came to Vienna, which -once I had known as the gayest capital of Europe, where charming people -played the pleasant game of life with music and love and laughter. - -In Vienna there was music still, but it played a _danse macabre_, a -dance of death, which struck one with a sense of horror. The orchestras -still fiddled in the restaurants. At night the opera-house was crowded. -In _cafés_ bright with gilt and glass, in restaurants rich in marble -walls, crowds of people listened to the waltzes of Strauss, ate smuggled -food at monstrous prices, laughed, flirted, and drank. They were the -profiteers of war, spending paper money with the knowledge that it had -no value outside Vienna, no value here except in stacks to buy warmth -for their stomachs, a little warmth for their souk, while their stock -of kronen lasted. They were the vultures from Jugo-Slavia and -Czecho-Slovakia come to feed on the corpse of Austria while it still -had flesh on its bones, and while Austrian kronen still had some kind of -purchase power... And outside, two million people were starving slowly -but very surely to death. - -The children were starving quickly to death. Their coffins passed me in -the streets. Ten--twelve--fifteen--in one half-hour between San Stefan’s -Chinch and the Favoritenstrasse. Small living skeletons padded after -one with naked feet, thrusting out little claw-like hands, begging for -charity. In the great hospital of Vienna children lay in crowded wards, -with twisted limbs and bulbous heads, diseased from birth, because of -their mother’s hunger and a life without milk and any kind of fat. - -Vienna, the capital of a great empire, had been sentenced to death by -the Treaty of Peace which had so carved up her former territory that -she was cut off from all her natural resources and from all means of -industry, commerce and life. - -It was Dr. Small, dear “Daddy” Small, who gave me an intimate knowledge -of what was happening in Vienna a year after Armistice, and it was -Eileen O’Connor who still further enlightened me by taking me into the -babies’ _crèches_, the _Kinderspital_ and the working people’s homes, -where disease and death found their victims. She took me to these places -until I sickened and said, “I can bear no more.” - -Dr. Small had a small office in the Kârtnerstrasse, where Eileen worked -with him, and it was here that I found them both a day after my arrival -in Vienna. Eileen was on her knees making a wood fire and puffing it -into a blaze for the purpose of boiling a tin kettle which stood on a -trivet, and after that, as I found, for making tea. Outside there was a -raw, horrible day, with a white mist in which those coffins were going -by and with those barefoot children with pallid faces and gaunt cheeks -padding by one’s side, so that I was glad to see the flames in the -hearth and to hear the cheerful dink of tea-cups which the doctor was -getting out. Better still, was I glad to see these two good friends, so -sane, so vital, so purposeful, as I found them, in a world of gloom and -neurosis. - -The doctor told me of their work. It was life-saving and increasing -in range of action. They had organised a number of feeding centres in -Vienna, and stores from which mothers could buy condensed milk and cocoa -and margarine, at next to nothing, for their starving babes. Austrian -ladies were doing most of the actual work apart from organisation at -headquarters, and doing it devotedly. From America and from England -money was flowing in. - -“The tide of thought is turning,” said the doctor. “Every dollar we get, -and every shilling, is a proof that the call of humanity is being heard -above the old war cries.” - -“And every dollar and every shilling,” said Eileen, “is helping to save -the life of some poor woman or some little mite who had no guilt in the -war, but suffered from its cruelty.” - -“This job,” said the doctor, “suits my peculiar philosophy. I am not out -so much to save these babies’ lives----” - -Here Eileen threatened to throw the teapot at his head. - -“Because,” he added, “some of them would be better dead, and anyhow, you -can’t save a nation by charity. But what I am out to do is to educate -the heart of the world above the baseness of the passions that caused -the massacre in Europe. We’re helping to do it by saving the children -and by appealing to the chivalry of men and women across the old -frontiers. We’re killers of cruelty, Miss Eileen and I. We’re rather -puffed up with ourselves, ain’t we, my dear?” - -He grinned at Eileen in a whimsical way, and I could see that between -this little American and that Irish girl there was an understanding -comradeship. - -So he told me when she left the room a minute to get another tea-cup or -wash one up. - -“That girl!” he said. “Say, laddie, you couldn’t find a better head in -all Europe, including Hoover himself. She’s a Napoleon Bonaparte without -his blood-lust. She’s Horatio Nelson and Lord Northcliffe and Nurse -Cavell all rolled into one, to produce the organising genius of Eileen -O’Connor. Only you would have to add a few saints like Catherine of -Sienna and Joan of Arc to allow for her spirituality. She organises -feeding-centres like you would write a column article. She gets the -confidence of Austrian women so that they would kiss her feet if she’d -allow it. She has a head for figures that fairly puts me to shame, and -as for her courage--well, I don’t mind telling you that I’ve sworn to -pack her back to England if she doesn’t keep clear of typhus dens and -other fever-stricken places. We can’t afford to lose her by some dirty -bug-bite.” - -Eileen came into the room again with another tea-cup and saucer. I -counted those on the table and saw three already. - -“Who is the other cup for?” I asked. “If you are expecting visitors I’ll -go, because I’m badly in need of a wash.” - -“Don’t worry,” said Eileen. “We haven’t time to wash in Vienna, and, -anyhow, there’s no soap, for love or money. This is for Wickham, who is -no visitor but one of the staff.” - -“Wickham?” I said. “Is Brand here?” - -“Rather!” said “Daddy” Small. “He has been here a week and is doing good -work. Looks after the supplies, and puts his heart into the job.” - -As he spoke the door opened and Brand strode into the room, with rain -dripping from his waterproof coat which he took off and flung into a -corner before he turned to the table. - -“Lord! A cup of tea is what I want!” - -“And what you shall have, my dear,” said Eileen. - -“But don’t you know a friend when you see him?” - -“By Jove!” - -He held my hand in a hard grip and patted me on the shoulder. Our -friendship was beyond the need of words. - -So there we three, who had seen many strange and tragic things in those -years of history, were together again in the city of Vienna, the city of -death, where the innocent were paying for the guilty, but where also, -as “Daddy” Small said, there was going out a call to charity which -was being heard by the heart of the world above the old war-cries of -cruelty. - -I stayed with them only a week. I had been long away from England and -had other work to do. But in that time I saw how these three friends, -and others in their service, were devoting themselves to the rescue -of human life, partly, I think, for their own sake, though without -conscious selfishness, and with a passionate pity for those who -suffered. By this service they were healing their own souls, sorely -wounded in the war. That was so, certainly, with Wickham Brand, and a -little, I think, with Eileen O’Connor. - -Brand was rescued in the nick of time by the doctor’s call to him. -Elsa’s death had struck him a heavy blow when his nerves were already -in rags and tatters. Now by active service in this work of humanity and -healing he was getting back to normality, getting serene and steady. -I saw the change in him, revealed by the light in his eyes and by his -quietude of speech and the old sense of humour, which for a while he had -lost. - -“I see now,” he said one night, “that it’s no use fighting against the -injustice and brutality of life. I can’t re-make the world or change the -things that are written in history or alter in any big way the destiny -of peoples. Stupidity, ignorance, barbarity; will continue among the -multitude. All that any of us can do is to tackle some good job that -lies at hand, and keep his own soul bright and fearless if there is any -chance and use his little intellect in his little circle for kindness -instead of cruelty. I find that chance here, and I am grateful.” - -The doctor had larger and bigger hopes, though his philosophy of life -was not much different from that of Brand’s. - -“I want to fix up an intellectual company in this funny old universe,” - he said. “I want to establish an intellectual aristocracy on -international lines--the leaders of the new world. By intellectuals -I don’t mean high-brow fellows with letters after their names and -encyclopaedias in their brain-pans. I mean men and women who by moral -character, kindness of heart, freedom from narrow hatreds, tolerance of -different creeds and races, and love of humanity, will unite in a free, -unfettered way, without a label or a league, to get a move on towards a -better system of human society. No red Bolshevism, mind you, no heaven -by way of hell, but a striving for greater justice between classes and -nations, and for peace within the frontiers of Christendom, and beyond, -if possible. It’s getting back to the influence of the individual, the -leadership of multitudes by the power of the higher mind. I’m doing it -by penny postcards to all my friends. This work of ours in Vienna is a -good proof of their response. Let all the folk with good hearts behind -their brains start writing postcards to each other, with a plea for -brotherhood, charity, peace, and the new world would come... You laugh! -Yes, I talk a little nonsense. It’s not so easy as that. But see the -idea? The leaders must keep in touch, and the herds will follow.” - -I turned to Eileen who was listening with a smile about her lips while -she pasted labels on to packets of cocoa. - -“What’s your philosophy?” I asked. - -She laughed, in that deep voice of hers. - -“I’ve none; only the old faith, and a little hope, and a heart that’s -bustin’ with love.” - -Brand was adding up figures in a book of accounts, and smiled across at -the girl whom he had known since boyhood, when she had pulled his hair. - -His wounds were healing. - - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Back to Life, by Philip Gibbs - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BACK TO LIFE *** - -***** This file should be named 50497-0.txt or 50497-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/0/4/9/50497/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by Google Books - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the -Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the -phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you’ll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project -Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain -Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation.” - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right -of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. - -The Foundation’s principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - |