On the Edge of the War Zone eBook

Mildred Aldrich
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 237 pages of information about On the Edge of the War Zone.

On the Edge of the War Zone eBook

Mildred Aldrich
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 237 pages of information about On the Edge of the War Zone.

We have been buoyed up for weeks by the hope of an Allied offensive—­and instead came this!

The first day’s news was bad, so was that of the 24th.  I have never since the war began felt such a vibrant spirit of anxiety about me.  To add to it, just before midnight on the 24th snow began to fall.  In the morning there was more snow on the ground than I had ever seen in France.  It was a foot deep in front of the house, and on the north side, where it had drifted, it was twice that depth.  This was so unusual that no one seemed to know what to do.  Amelie could not get to me.  No one is furnished with foot-gear to walk in snow, except men who happen to have high galoshes.  I looked out of the window, and saw Pere shovelling away to make a path to the gate, but with an iron shovel it was a long passage.  It was nine o’clock before he got the gate open, and then Amelie came slipping down.  Pere was busy all day keeping that path open, for the snow continued to fall.

This meant that communications were all stopped.  Trains ran slowly on the main lines, but our little road was blocked.  It continued to snow for two days, and for two days we had no news from the outside world.

On the morning of the 27th one of our old men went to the Demi-Lune and watched for a military car coming in from Meaux.  After hours of waiting, one finally appeared.  He ran into the road and hailed it, and as the chauffeur put on his brakes, he called: 

“Et Verdun?”

“Elle tient,” was the reply, and the auto rushed on.

That was all the news we had in those days.

When communications were opened the news we got was not consoling.  First phase of the battle closed six days ago—­with the Germans in Douaumont, and the fighting still going on—­but the spirit of the French not a jot changed.  Here, among the civilians, they say:  “Verdun will never fall,” and out at the front, they tell us that the poilus simply hiss through their clenched teeth, as they fight and fall, “They shall not pass.”  And all the time we sit inactive on the hilltop holding that thought.  It’s all we can do.

We were livened up a bit last week because the village clown was on his home leave.  He is a lad of twenty-three with a young wife and a little three-year-old girl, who has learned to talk since “dada” saw her, and is her father right over—­full of fun, good-humor, and laughter.

I have told you that we almost never hear war talk.  We did hear some while our local clown was home, but how much was true and how much his imagination I don’t know.  Anyway, his drollery made us all laugh.  His mother-in-law had died since he left, and when his wife wept on his shoulder, he patted her on the back, and winked over his shoulder at his admiring friends, as he said:  “Chut, ma fille, if you are going to cry in these days because someone dies, you’ll have no time to sleep.  Only think of it, the old lady died in bed, and that is everything which is most aristocratic in these days.”

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
On the Edge of the War Zone from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.