[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
brick and plaster. There was nothing picturesque about this, as there was in the war pictures one saw at home.
A cyclone or a fire might have done just as good a job. The place was simply a great dump-heap; an
exaggeration of those which disgrace the outskirts of American towns. It was the same thing over and over;
mounds of burned brick and broken stone, heaps of rusty, twisted iron, splintered beams and rafters, stagnant
pools, cellar holes full of muddy water. An American soldier had stepped into one of those holes a few nights
before, and been drowned.
This had been a rich town of eighteen thousand inhabitants; now the civilian population was about four
hundred. There were people there who had hung on all through the years of German occupation; others who,
as soon as they heard that the enemy was driven out, came back from wherever they had found shelter. They
were living in cellars, or in little wooden barracks made from old timbers and American goods boxes. As he
walked along, Claude read familiar names and addresses, painted on boards built into the sides of these frail
shelters: "From Emery Bird, Thayer Co. Kansas City, Mo." "Daniels and Fisher, Denver, Colo." These
inscriptions cheered him so much that he began to feel like going up and calling on the French ladies.
The sun had come out hot after three days of rain. The stagnant pools and the weeds that grew in the ditches
gave out a rank, heavy smell. Wild flowers grew triumphantly over the piles of rotting wood and rusty iron;
cornflowers and Queen Anne's lace and poppies; blue and white and red, as if the French colours came up
spontaneously out of the French soil, no matter what the Germans did to it.
Claude paused before a little shanty built against a half-demolished brick wall. A gilt cage hung in the
doorway, with a canary, singing beautifully. An old woman was working in the garden patch, picking out bits
of brick and plaster the rain had washed up, digging with her fingers around the pale carrot-tops and neat
lettuce heads. Claude approached her, touched his helmet, and asked her how one could find the way to the
Red Cross.
She wiped her hands on her apron and took him by the elbow. "Vous savez le tank Anglais? Non? Marie,
Marie!"
One of Ours 153
(He learned afterward that every one was directed to go this way or that from a disabled British tank that had
been left on the site of the old town hall.)
A little girl ran out of the barrack, and her grandmother told her to go at once and take the American to the
Red Cross. Marie put her hand in Claude's and led him off along one of the paths that wound among the
rubbish. She took him out of the way to show him a church,--evidently one of the ruins of which they were
proudest,--where the blue sky was shining through the white arches. The Virgin stood with empty arms over
the central door; a little foot sticking to her robe showed where the infant Jesus had been shot away.
"Le bébé est cassé, mais il a protégé sa mère," Marie explained with satisfaction. As they went on, she told
Claude that she had a soldier among the Americans who was her friend. "Il est bon, il est gai, mon soldat," but
he sometimes drank too much alcohol, and that was a bad habit. Perhaps now, since his comrade had stepped
into a cellar hole Monday night while he was drunk, and had been drowned, her "Sharlie" would be warned
and would do better. Marie was evidently a well brought up child. Her father, she said, had been a
schoolmaster. At the foot of the convent hill, she turned to go home. Claude called her back and awkwardly
tried to give her some money, but she thrust her hands behind her and said resolutely, "Non, merci. Je n'ai
besoin de rien," and then ran away down the path.
As he climbed toward the top of the hill he noticed that the ground had been cleaned up a bit. The path was
clear, the bricks and hewn stones had been piled in neat heaps, the broken hedges had been trimmed and the
dead parts cut away. Emerging at last into the garden, he stood still for wonder; even though it was in ruins, it
seemed so beautiful after the disorder of the world below.
The gravel walks were clean and shining. A wall of very old boxwoods stood green against a row of dead
Lombardy poplars. Along the shattered side of the main building, a pear tree, trained on wires like a vine, still
flourished,--full of little red pears. Around the stone well was a shaven grass plot, and everywhere there were
little trees and shrubs, which had been too low for the shells to hit,--or for the fire, which had seared the
poplars, to catch. The hill must have been wrapped in flames at one time, and all the tall trees had been
burned.
The barrack was built against the walls of the cloister,--three arches of which remained, like a stone wing to
the shed of planks. On a ladder stood a one-armed young man, driving nails very skillfully with his single
hand. He seemed to be making a frame projection from the sloping roof, to support an awning. He carried his
nails in his mouth. When he wanted one, he hung his hammer to the belt of his trousers, took a nail from
between his teeth, stuck it into the wood, and then deftly rapped it on the head. Claude watched him for a
moment, then went to the foot of the ladder and held out his two hands. "Laissez-moi," he exclaimed.
The one aloft spat his nails out into his palm, looked down, and laughed. He was about Claude's age, with
very yellow hair and moustache and blue eyes. A charming looking fellow.
"Willingly," he said. "This is no great affair, but I do it to amuse myself, and it will be pleasant for the ladies."
He descended and gave his hammer to the visitor. Claude set to work on the frame, while the other went under
the stone arches and brought back a roll of canvas,--part of an old tent, by the look of it.
"Un héritage des Boches," he explained unrolling it upon the grass. "I found it among their filth in the cellar,
and had the idea to make a pavilion for the ladies, as our trees are destroyed." He stood up suddenly. "Perhaps
you have come to see the ladies?"
"Plus tard."
Very well, the boy said, they would get the pavilion done for a surprise for Mlle. Olive when she returned.
She was down in the town now, visiting the sick people. He bent over his canvas again, measuring and cutting
One of Ours 154
with a pair of garden shears, moving round the green plot on his knees, and all the time singing. Claude
wished he could understand the words of his song.
While they were working together, tying the cloth up to the frame, Claude, from his elevation, saw a tall girl
coming slowly up the path by which he had ascended. She paused at the top, by the boxwood hedge, as if she [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl aikidobyd.xlx.pl
brick and plaster. There was nothing picturesque about this, as there was in the war pictures one saw at home.
A cyclone or a fire might have done just as good a job. The place was simply a great dump-heap; an
exaggeration of those which disgrace the outskirts of American towns. It was the same thing over and over;
mounds of burned brick and broken stone, heaps of rusty, twisted iron, splintered beams and rafters, stagnant
pools, cellar holes full of muddy water. An American soldier had stepped into one of those holes a few nights
before, and been drowned.
This had been a rich town of eighteen thousand inhabitants; now the civilian population was about four
hundred. There were people there who had hung on all through the years of German occupation; others who,
as soon as they heard that the enemy was driven out, came back from wherever they had found shelter. They
were living in cellars, or in little wooden barracks made from old timbers and American goods boxes. As he
walked along, Claude read familiar names and addresses, painted on boards built into the sides of these frail
shelters: "From Emery Bird, Thayer Co. Kansas City, Mo." "Daniels and Fisher, Denver, Colo." These
inscriptions cheered him so much that he began to feel like going up and calling on the French ladies.
The sun had come out hot after three days of rain. The stagnant pools and the weeds that grew in the ditches
gave out a rank, heavy smell. Wild flowers grew triumphantly over the piles of rotting wood and rusty iron;
cornflowers and Queen Anne's lace and poppies; blue and white and red, as if the French colours came up
spontaneously out of the French soil, no matter what the Germans did to it.
Claude paused before a little shanty built against a half-demolished brick wall. A gilt cage hung in the
doorway, with a canary, singing beautifully. An old woman was working in the garden patch, picking out bits
of brick and plaster the rain had washed up, digging with her fingers around the pale carrot-tops and neat
lettuce heads. Claude approached her, touched his helmet, and asked her how one could find the way to the
Red Cross.
She wiped her hands on her apron and took him by the elbow. "Vous savez le tank Anglais? Non? Marie,
Marie!"
One of Ours 153
(He learned afterward that every one was directed to go this way or that from a disabled British tank that had
been left on the site of the old town hall.)
A little girl ran out of the barrack, and her grandmother told her to go at once and take the American to the
Red Cross. Marie put her hand in Claude's and led him off along one of the paths that wound among the
rubbish. She took him out of the way to show him a church,--evidently one of the ruins of which they were
proudest,--where the blue sky was shining through the white arches. The Virgin stood with empty arms over
the central door; a little foot sticking to her robe showed where the infant Jesus had been shot away.
"Le bébé est cassé, mais il a protégé sa mère," Marie explained with satisfaction. As they went on, she told
Claude that she had a soldier among the Americans who was her friend. "Il est bon, il est gai, mon soldat," but
he sometimes drank too much alcohol, and that was a bad habit. Perhaps now, since his comrade had stepped
into a cellar hole Monday night while he was drunk, and had been drowned, her "Sharlie" would be warned
and would do better. Marie was evidently a well brought up child. Her father, she said, had been a
schoolmaster. At the foot of the convent hill, she turned to go home. Claude called her back and awkwardly
tried to give her some money, but she thrust her hands behind her and said resolutely, "Non, merci. Je n'ai
besoin de rien," and then ran away down the path.
As he climbed toward the top of the hill he noticed that the ground had been cleaned up a bit. The path was
clear, the bricks and hewn stones had been piled in neat heaps, the broken hedges had been trimmed and the
dead parts cut away. Emerging at last into the garden, he stood still for wonder; even though it was in ruins, it
seemed so beautiful after the disorder of the world below.
The gravel walks were clean and shining. A wall of very old boxwoods stood green against a row of dead
Lombardy poplars. Along the shattered side of the main building, a pear tree, trained on wires like a vine, still
flourished,--full of little red pears. Around the stone well was a shaven grass plot, and everywhere there were
little trees and shrubs, which had been too low for the shells to hit,--or for the fire, which had seared the
poplars, to catch. The hill must have been wrapped in flames at one time, and all the tall trees had been
burned.
The barrack was built against the walls of the cloister,--three arches of which remained, like a stone wing to
the shed of planks. On a ladder stood a one-armed young man, driving nails very skillfully with his single
hand. He seemed to be making a frame projection from the sloping roof, to support an awning. He carried his
nails in his mouth. When he wanted one, he hung his hammer to the belt of his trousers, took a nail from
between his teeth, stuck it into the wood, and then deftly rapped it on the head. Claude watched him for a
moment, then went to the foot of the ladder and held out his two hands. "Laissez-moi," he exclaimed.
The one aloft spat his nails out into his palm, looked down, and laughed. He was about Claude's age, with
very yellow hair and moustache and blue eyes. A charming looking fellow.
"Willingly," he said. "This is no great affair, but I do it to amuse myself, and it will be pleasant for the ladies."
He descended and gave his hammer to the visitor. Claude set to work on the frame, while the other went under
the stone arches and brought back a roll of canvas,--part of an old tent, by the look of it.
"Un héritage des Boches," he explained unrolling it upon the grass. "I found it among their filth in the cellar,
and had the idea to make a pavilion for the ladies, as our trees are destroyed." He stood up suddenly. "Perhaps
you have come to see the ladies?"
"Plus tard."
Very well, the boy said, they would get the pavilion done for a surprise for Mlle. Olive when she returned.
She was down in the town now, visiting the sick people. He bent over his canvas again, measuring and cutting
One of Ours 154
with a pair of garden shears, moving round the green plot on his knees, and all the time singing. Claude
wished he could understand the words of his song.
While they were working together, tying the cloth up to the frame, Claude, from his elevation, saw a tall girl
coming slowly up the path by which he had ascended. She paused at the top, by the boxwood hedge, as if she [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]