The Soul of the War Part 26

Khaki came to Paris, too, and although it was worn by many who did not hold the King's commission but swaggered it as something in the Red Cross--G.o.d knows what!--the drab of its colour gave a thrill to all those people of Paris who, at least in the first months of the war, were stirred with an immense sentiment of grat.i.tude because England had come to the rescue in her hour of need, and had given her blood generously to France, and had cemented the Entente Cordiale with deathless ties of comrades.h.i.+p. "Comme ils sont chics, ces braves anglais!" They did not soon tire of expressing their admiration for the "chic" style of our young officers, so neat and clean-cut and workmanlike, with their brown belts and brown boots, and khaki riding breeches.

"Ulloh... Engleesh boy? Ahlright, eh?" The b.u.t.terfly girls hovered about them, spread their wings before those young officers from the front and those knights of the Red Cross, tempted them with all their wiles, and led them, too many of them, to their mistress Circe, who put her spell upon them.

At every turn in the street, or under the trees of Paris, some queer little episode, some startling figure from the great drama of the war arrested the interest of a wondering spectator. A glimpse of tragedy made one's soul shudder between two smiles at the comedy of life.

Tears and laughter chased each other through Paris in this time of war.

"Coupe gorge, comme ca. Sale boche, mort. Sa tete, voyez. Tombe a terre. Sang! Mains, en bain de sang. Comme ca!"

So the Turco spoke under the statue of Aphrodite in the gardens of the Tuileries to a crowd of smiling men and girls. He had a German officer's helmet. He described with vivid and disgusting gestures how he had cut off the man's head--he clicked his tongue to give the sound of it--and how he had bathed his hands in the blood of his enemy, before carrying this trophy to his trench. He held out his hands, staring at them, laughing at them as though they were still crimson with German blood. ... A Frenchwoman s.h.i.+vered a little and turned pale. But another woman laughed--an old creature with toothless gums--with a shrill, harsh note.

"Sale race!" she said; "a dirty race! I should be glad to cut a German throat!"

Outside the Invalides, motor-cars were always arriving at the headquarters of General Galieni. French staff officers came at full speed, with long shrieks on their motor-horns, and little crowds gathered round the cars to question the drivers.

"ca marche, la guerre? Il y a du progres?"

British officers came also, with dispatches from headquarters, and two soldiers with loaded rifles in the back seats of cars that had been riddled with bullets and pock-marked with shrapnel.

Two of these men told their tale to me. They had left the trenches the previous night to come on a special mission to Paris, and they seemed to me like men who had been in some torture chamber and suffered unforgettable and nameless horrors. Splashed with mud, their faces powdered with a greyish clay and chilled to the bone by the sharp shrewd wind of their night near Soissons and the motor journey to Paris, they could hardly stand, and trembled and spoke with chattering teeth.

"I wouldn't have missed it," said one of them, "but I don't want to go through it again. It's absolutely infernal in those trenches, and the enemy's sh.e.l.l-fire breaks one's nerves."

They were not ashamed to confess the terror that still shook them, and wondered, like children, at the luck--the miracle of luck--which had summoned them from their place in the firing-line to be the escort of an officer to Paris, with safe seats in his motor-car.

8

For several weeks of the autumn while the British were at Soissons, many of our officers and men came into Paris like this, on special missions or on special leave, and along the boulevards one heard all accents of the English tongue from John o' Groats to Land's End and from Peckham Rye to Hackney Downs. The Kilties were the wonder of Paris, and their knees were under the fire of a mult.i.tude of eyes as they went swinging to the Gare du Nord The shopgirls of Paris screamed with laughter at these brawny lads in "jupes," and surrounded them with shameless mirth, while Jock grinned from ear to ear and Sandy, more bashful, coloured to the roots of his fiery hair.

Cigarettes were showered into the hands of these soldier lads. They could get drunk for nothing at the expense of English residents of Paris--the jockeys from Chantilly, the bank clerks of the Imperial Club, the bar loungers of the St. Petersbourg. The temptation was not resisted with the courage of Christian martyrs. The Provost-Marshal had to threaten some of his own military police with the terrors of court-martial.

The wounded were allowed at last to come to Paris, and the surgeons who had stood with idle hands found more than enough work to do, and the ladies of France who had put on nurses' dresses walked very softly and swiftly through long wards, no longer thrilled with the beautiful sentiment of smoothing the brows of handsome young soldiers, but thrilled by the desperate need of service, hard and ugly and terrible, among those poor b.l.o.o.d.y men, agonizing through the night, helpless in their pain, moaning before the rescue of death. The faint-hearted among these women fled panic-stricken, with blanched faces, to Nice and Monte Carlo and provincial chateaux, where they played with less unpleasant work. But there were not many like that. Most of them stayed, nerving themselves to the endurance of those tragedies, finding in the weakness of their womanhood a strange new courage, strong as steel, infinitely patient, full of pity cleansed of all false sentiment. Many of these fine ladies of France, in whose veins ran the blood of women who had gone very bravely to the guillotine, were animated by the spirit of their grandmothers and by the ghosts of French womanhood throughout the history of their country, from Genevieve to Sister Julie, and putting aside the frivolity of life which had been their only purpose, faced the filth and horrors of the hospitals without a shudder and with the virtue of nursing nuns.

Into the streets of Paris, therefore, came the convalescents and the lightly wounded, and one-armed or one-legged officers or simple poilus with bandaged heads and hands could be seen in any restaurant among comrades who had not yet received their baptism of fire, had not cried "Touche!" after the bursting of a German sh.e.l.l.

It was worth while to spend an evening, and a louis, at Maxim's, or at Henry's, to see the company that came to dine there when the German army was still entrenched within sixty miles of Paris. They were not crowded, those places of old delight, and the gaiety had gone from them, like the laughter of fair women who have pa.s.sed beyond the river. But through the swing doors came two by two, or in little groups, enough people to rob these lighted rooms of loneliness.

Often it was the woman who led the man, lending him the strength of her arm. Yet when he sat at table--this young officer of the Cha.s.seurs in sky-blue jacket, or this wounded Dragoon with a golden casque and long horse-hair tail--hiding an empty sleeve against the woman's side, or concealing the loss of a leg beneath the table cloth, it was wonderful to see the smile that lit up his face and the absence of all pain in it.

"Ah! comme il fait bon!"

I heard the sigh and the words come from one of these soldiers--not an officer but a fine gentleman in his private's uniform--as he looked round the room and let his brown eyes linger on the candle-lights and the twinkling gla.s.ses and snow-white table-cloths. Out of the mud and blood of the trenches, with only the loss of an arm or a leg, he had come back to this sanctuary of civilization from which ugliness is banished and all grim realities.

So, for this reason, other soldiers came on brief trips to Paris from the front. They desired to taste the fine flavour of civilization in its ultra- refinement, to dine delicately, to have the fragrance of flowers about them, to sit in the glamour of shaded lights, to watch a woman's beauty through the haze of cigarette-smoke, and to listen to the music of her voice. There was always a woman by the soldier's side, propping her chin in her hands and smiling into the depths of his eyes. For the soul of a Frenchman demands the help of women, and the love of women, however strong his courage or his self-reliance.

The beauty of life is to him a feminine thing, holding the spirit of motherhood, romantic love and comrades.h.i.+p more intimate and tender than between man and man. Only duty is masculine and hard.

9

The theatres and music-halls of Paris opened one by one in the autumn of the first year of war. Some of the dancing girls and the singing girls found their old places behind the footlights, unless they had coughed their lungs away, or grown too pinched and plain. But for a long time it was impossible to recapture the old spirit of these haunts, especially in the music-halls, where ghosts pa.s.sed in the darkness of deserted promenoirs, and where a chill gave one goose- flesh in the empty stalls,

Paris was half ashamed to go to the Folies Bergeres or the Renaissance, while away la-bas men were lying on the battlefields or crouching in the trenches. Only when the monotony of life without amus.e.m.e.nt became intolerable to people who have to laugh so that they may not weep, did they wend their way to these places for an hour or two. Even the actors and actresses and playwrights of Paris felt the grim presence of death not far away. The old Rabelaisianism was toned down to something like decency and at least the grosser vulgarities of the music-hall stage were banned by common consent.

The little indecencies, the sly allusions, the candour of French comedy remained, and often it was only stupidity which made one laugh. Nothing on earth could have been more ridiculous than the little lady who strutted up and down the stage, in the uniform of a British Tommy, to the song of "Tipperary," which she rendered as a sentimental ballad, with dramatic action. When she lay down on her front b.u.t.tons and died a dreadful death from German bullets, still singing in a feeble voice: "Good-bye, Piccadilly; farewell, Leicester Square," there were British officers in the boxes who laughed until they wept, to the great astonishment of a French audience, who saw no humour in the exhibition.

The kilted ladies of the Olympia would have brought a blush to the cheeks of the most brazen-faced Jock from the slums of Glasgow, though they were received with great applause by respectable French bourgeois with elderly wives. And yet the soul of Paris, the big thing in its soul, the spirit which leaps out to the truth and beauty of life, was there even in Olympia, among the women with the roving eyes, and amidst all those fooleries.

Between two comic "turns" a patriotic song would come. They were not songs of false sentiment, like those patriotic ballads which thrill the G.o.ds in London, but they had a strange and terrible sincerity, not afraid of death nor of the women's broken hearts, nor of the grim realities of war, but rising to the heights of spiritual beauty in their cry to the courage of women and the pity of G.o.d. They sang of the splendours of sacrifice for France and of the glory of that young manhood which had offered its blood to the Flag. The old Roman spirit breathed through the verses of these music-hall songs, written perhaps by hungry poets au sixieme etage, but alight with a little flame of genius. The women who sang them were artists. Every gesture was a studied thing. Every modulation of the voice was the result of training and technique. But they too were stirred with a real emotion, and as they sang something would change the audience, some thrill would stir them, some power, of old ideals, of traditions strong as natural instinct, of enthusiasm for their country of France, for whom men will gladly die and women give their heart's blood, shook them and set them on fire.

10

The people of Paris, to whom music is a necessity of life, were not altogether starved, though orchestras had been abolished in the restaurants. One day a well-known voice, terrific in its muscular energy and emotional fervour, rose like a trumpet-call in a quiet courtyard off the Rue St. Honore. It was the voice of "Bruyant Alexandre"--"Noisy Alexander"--who had new songs to sing about the little soldiers of France and the German vulture and the glory of the Tricolour. Giving part of his proceeds to the funds for the wounded, he went from courtyard to courtyard--one could trace his progress by vibration of tremendous sound--and other musicians followed him, so that often when I came up the Rue Royale or along quiet streets between the boulevards, I was tempted into the courts by the tinkle of guitars and women's voices singing some ballad of the war with a wonderful spirit and rhythm which set the pulses beating at a quicker pace. In the luncheon hour crowds of midinettes surrounded the singers, joining sometimes in the choruses, squealing with laughter at jests in verse not to be translated in sober English prose and finding a little moisture in their eyes after a song of sentiment which reminded them of the price which must be paid for glory by young men for whose homecoming they had waited through the winter and the spring.

11

No German soldier came through the gates of Paris, and no German guns smashed a way through the outer fortifications. But now and then an enemy came over the gates and high above the ramparts, a winged messenger of death, coming very swiftly through the sky, killing a few mortals down below and then retreating into the hiding- places behind the clouds. There were not many people who saw the "Taube"--the German dove--make its swoop and hurl its fire-b.a.l.l.s.

There was just a speck in the sky, a glint of metal, and the far- humming of an aerial engine. Perhaps it was a French aviator coming back from a reconnaissance over the enemy's lines on the Aisne, or taking a joy ride over Paris to stretch his wings. The little shop-girls looked up and thought how fine it would be to go riding with him, as high as the stars--with one of those keen profiled men who have such roguish eyes when they come to earth. Frenchmen strolling down the boulevards glanced skywards and smiled. They were brave lads who defended the air of Paris. No Boche would dare to poke the beak of his engine above the housetops. But one or two men were uneasy and stood with strained eyes. There was something peculiar about the cut of those wings en haut. They seemed to bend back at the tips, unlike a Bleriot, with its straight spread of canvas.

"Sapristi! une Taube! ... Attention, mon vieux!" In some side streets of Paris a hard thing hit the earth and opened it with a crash. A woman crossing the road with a little girl--she had just slipped out of her courtyard to buy some milk--felt the ground rise up and hit her in the face. It was very curious. Such a thing had never happened to her before. "Suzette?" She moaned and cried, "Suzette?" But Suzette did not answer. The child was lying sideways, with her face against the kerbstone. Her white frock was crimsoning with a deep and spreading stain. Something had happened to one of her legs. It was broken and crumpled up, like a bird's claw.

"Suzette! Ma pet.i.te! O, mon Dieu!" A policeman was bending over little Suzette. Then he stood straight and raised a clenched fist to the sky. "Sale Boche! ... a.s.sa.s.sin! ... Sale cochon!" People came running up the street and out of the courtyards. An ambulance glided swiftly through the crowd. A little girl whose name was Suzette was picked up from the edge of the kerbstone out of a pool of blood. Her face lay sideways on the policeman's shoulder, as white as a sculptured angel on a tombstone. It seemed that she would never walk again, this little Suzette, whose footsteps had gone dancing through the streets of Paris. It was always like that when a Taube came. That bird of death chose women and children as its prey, and Paris cursed the cowards who made war on their innocents.

But Paris was not afraid. The women did not stay indoors because between one street and another they might be struck out of life, without a second's warning. They glanced up to the sky and smiled disdainfully. They were glad even that a Taube should come now and then, so that they, the women of Paris, might run some risks in this war and share its perils with their men, who every day in the trenches la-bas, faced death for the sake of France. "Our chance of death is a million to one," said some of them. "We should be poor things to take fright at that!"

12

But there were other death-s.h.i.+ps that might come sailing through the sky on a fair night without wind or moon. The enemy tried to affright the soul of Paris by warnings of the destruction coming to them with a fleet of Zeppelins. But Paris scoffed. "Je m'en fiche de vos Zeppelins!" said the spirit of Paris. As the weeks pa.s.sed by and the months, and still no Zeppelins came, the menace became a jest. The very word of Zeppelin was heard with hilarity. There were comic articles in the newspapers, taunting the German Count who had made those gas-bags. There were also serious articles proving the impossibility of a raid by airs.h.i.+ps. They would be chased by French aviators as soon as they were sighted. They would be like the Spanish Armada, surrounded by the little English wars.h.i.+ps, pouring shot and sh.e.l.l into their unwieldy hulks. Not one would escape down the wind.

The police of Paris, more nervous than the public, devised a system of signals if Zeppelins were sighted. There were to be bugle-calls throughout the city, and the message they gave would mean "lights out!" in every part of Paris. For several nights there were rehearsals of darkness, without the bugle-calls, and the city was plunged into abysmal gloom, through which people who had been dining in restaurants lost themselves in familiar streets and groped their way with little shouts of laughter as they b.u.mped into substantial shadows.

Paris enjoyed the adventure, the thrill of romance in the mystery of darkness, the weird beauty of it. The Tuileries gardens, without a single light except the faint gleams of star-dust, was an enchanted place, with the white statues of the G.o.ddesses very vague and tremulous in the shadow world above banks of invisible flowers which drenched the still air with sweet perfumes. The narrow streets were black tunnels into which Parisians plunged with an exquisite frisson of romantic fear. High walls of darkness closed about them, and they gazed up to the floor of heaven from enormous gulfs. A man on a balcony au cinquieme was smoking a cigarette, and as he drew the light made a little beacon-flame, illumining his face before dying out and leaving a blank wall of darkness. Men and women took hands like little children playing a game of bogey-man. Lovers kissed each other in this great hiding-place of Paris, where no prying eyes could see. Women's laughter, whispers, swift scampers of feet, squeals of dismay made the city murmurous. La Ville Lumiere was extinguished and became an unlighted sepulchre thronged with ghosts. But the Zeppelins had not come, and in the morning Paris laughed at last night's jest and said, "C'est idiot!"

But one night--a night in March--people who had stayed up late by their firesides, talking of their sons at the front or dozing over the Temps, heard a queer music in the streets below, like the horns of elf-land blowing. It came closer and louder, with a strange sing-song note in which there was something ominous.

"What is that?" said a man sitting up in an easy-chair and looking towards a window near the Boulevard St. Germain.

The woman opposite stretched herself a little wearily. "Some drunken soldier with a bugle. . . . Good gracious, it is one o'clock and we are not in bed!"

The man had risen from his chair and flung the window open.

"Listen! ... They were to blow the bugles when the Zeppelins came...

Perhaps..."