Part 27 (1/2)

Leon returned and I was about to ask my friend to give us a little exhibition of his skill with the rope, when the call to arms obliged him to leave. So enjoining me to give his regards to Broadway, he departed much pleased with the world in general and himself in particular.

From various sources, though none of them official, I learned that the road as far as Coulommiers was clear. That was all we wanted to know, so after seeing the boys off for Orleans, a very much diminished caravan started on its homeward journey. The horses, after two days' rest, were quite giddy, and the carts being light, they carried us on the new road north as far as Pezarches with but few halts. The country we pa.s.sed through, though abandoned by its inhabitants, showed no traces of invasion. The Germans had not been able to push so far west. I counted on making Coulonimiers to sleep, but night closed in early and with it came a chilly drizzle, which sent us in search of lodgings. Not a soul was to be seen anywhere, and as all the houses were shut, I deemed it unwise to force a door. So we pushed ahead into the border of the forest, hoping that the rain would soon cease.

Presently someone discovered an abandoned hermitage, through whose low doorway we crept, and spreading out our blankets on the floor, prepared to make a night of it--glad of shelter from the dampness.

”Hark!” hissed George, just as we were dropping off to sleep.

We all sat up.

”There! That's the third bullet that's landed on this roof!”

Ra-ta-pan-Ratapan! There was no mistaking the sound--even through the wind and rain that raged outside.

George crawled on his knees toward the opening, and a second later jumped back, clapping his hand to his head with a low shriek.

”He's shot!” cried Julie.

I leaped forward, grabbed the lantern, and holding it to the spot, opened the boy's clenched fingers. As they parted, a heavy horse chestnut burr fell to the floor with a loud thump!

We were too nervous to appreciate the humor of the situation, and had some little difficulty composing ourselves to rest.

As we approached Coulommiers the next morning the horrors of war became more and more evident. On both sides of the roadway the fields were strewn with bay and straw. Every ten paces the earth was burned or charred, and in some places the smoke still rose from dying campfires.

Bones, bottles and tin preserve cans in extraordinary quant.i.ties were strewn in every direction, and a half mile before we reached the town itself, a dead horse lay abandoned in a ditch.

At this point we were hailed by a party of bedraggled refugees who warned us that it would be useless to try to enter Coulommiers.

”We're from Neuilly--St. Front, on our way home, but there doesn't seem much chance of our getting any further. The place is in the hands of the military authorities--with orders to let no one pa.s.s.”

We halted, and George went on ahead and interviewed a sentry, returning with a negative reply, and the information that Coulommiers was in a pretty mess after the looting.

”It can't be worse than _La Ferte Gauche._” And above the almost deafening roar of the cannon an elderly man told us bow his caravan had been caught by the Germans, stripped of everything they possessed, separated from their women folk, and with armed sentries back of them had been forced to work at the building of a temporary bridge to replace the one the French had blown up.

”I got off easy--with only a few welts from a raw-hide,” he murmured, ”but my brother (and he pointed to a very stout masculine figure rolled in a blanket and sitting motionless on the steps of an abandoned road house)--”my brother's nearly done for! You see he's near-sighted and not used to manual labor, and every time he missed his nail with the hammer, the German coward would jab him in the ribs with the point of his bayonet. Seventy-two wounds!”

”And your women?”

”G.o.d knows what they did to them! My wife hasn't stopped sobbing since we met. She's dazed--I can't make her talk.”

As he rambled on with his haphazard story, glad of fellow sympathy, I spied a line of British Army Supply carts advancing up the road. The leader came to a halt and getting down, the driver entered the first of the abandoned dwellings before which we were standing. Presently he reappeared.

”Just my luck! I say”--(and this addressed to our group with a sort of blank, hopeless expression) ”I don't suppose any of you Frenchies know where I could get a cup of tea!”

I laughed outright, much to his astonishment.

”Not anywhere around here, unless you're willing to wait until I can build fire enough to make you one!”

The man blushed crimson.

”Ah--I couldn't think--”