I asked to be taken home.
On the way to the machine we passed a mitrailleuse
buried by the roadside. Its location brought
an argument among the officers. Strategically
it would be valuable for a time, but there was some
question as to its position in view of a retirement
by the French.
I could not follow the argument. I did not try
to. I was cold and tired, and the red sunset
had turned to deep purple and gold. The guns
had ceased. Over all the countryside brooded the
dreadful peace of sheer exhaustion and weariness.
And in the air, high overhead, a German plane sailed
slowly home.
* * * *
*
Sentries halted us on the way back holding high lanterns
that set the bayonets of their guns to gleaming.
Faces pressed to the glass, they surveyed us stolidly,
making sure that we were as our passes described us.
Long lines of marching men turned out to let us pass.
As darkness settled down, the location of the German
line, as it encircled Ypres, was plainly shown by
floating fusees. In every hamlet reserves
were lining up for the trenches, dark masses of men,
with here and there a face thrown into relief as a
match was held to light a cigarette. Open doors
showed warm, lamp-lit interiors and the glow of fires.
I sat back in the car and listened while the officers
talked together. They were speaking of General
Joffre, of his great ability, of his confidence in
the outcome of the war, and of his method, during those
winter months when, with such steady fighting, there
had been so little apparent movement. One of
the officers told me that General Joffre had put his
winter tactics in three words:
“I nibble them.”
DUNKIRK: FROM MY JOURNAL
I wakened early this morning and went to church—a
great empty place, very cold but with the red light
of the sanctuary lamp burning before a shrine.
There were perhaps a dozen people there when I went
in. Before the Mater Dolorosa two women in black
were praying with upturned eyes. At the foot
of the Cross crouched the tragic figure of the Mother,
with her dead Son in her arms. Before her were
these other mothers, praying in the light of the thin
burning candles. Far away, near the altar, seven
women of the Society of the Holy Rosary were conducting
a private service. They were market women, elderly,
plain, raising to the altar faces full of faith and
devotion, as they prayed for France and for their
soldier-children.
Here and there was a soldier or a sailor on his knees
on a low prie-dieu, his cap dangling loose in his
hands. Unlike the women, the lips of these men
seldom moved in prayer; they apparently gazed in wordless
adoration at the shrine. Great and swelling thoughts
were theirs, no doubt, kindled by that tiny red flame:
thoughts too big for utterance or even for form.
To go out and fight for France, to drive back the
invaders, and, please God, to come back again—that
was what their faces said.
