Woman's Experiences in the Great War — Chapters 44-45

CAN I TRUST THEM?

We entered a café.

I shrank and clutched his arm.

The place was full of Germans, but they were common soldiers these, not Officers.

They were drinking beer and coffee at the little tables.

"Take no notice of them!"

whispered Henri.

"You are all right!

Trust me!"

We walked through the Restaurant, Henri and I arm in arm, and the little girls clinging to our hands.

They really played their parts amazingly, those little girls.

"I have found my wife from Brussels," announced Henri in a loud voice to the old proprietor behind the counter.

"How are things in Brussels, Madame?"

queried an old Belgian in the café.

But I made no answer.

I affected not to hear.

I went with Henri on through the little hall at the far end of the café.

Next moment I found myself in a big, clean kitchen.

And a tall stout woman, her black eyes swimming in tears, was leaning towards me, her arms open.

"Oh, poor Madame!"

she said.

She clasped me to her breast.

Between her tears, in her choking voice she whispered, "I told Henri to bring you here.

You are safe with me.

We are from Luxemburg.

We fled from home at the beginning of the war rather than see our state swarming with Prussians, as it is now.

We Luxemburgers hate Germans with a hate that passes all other hate on earth.

And I have three children, who are all in England now.

I sent them there a week ago.

I sold my jewels, my all to let them go.

I know my children are safe in England.

And you, Madame, you are safe with me!"

"Don't call me Madame, call me Louisa."

"And call me Ada," she said.

"So, au revoir!"

said Henri.

"I shall come round later with your things."

He seized the little girls, and with a nod and "Courage, Louisa," he disappeared.

Oh, the kindness of that broken-hearted Luxemburg woman.

Her poor heart was bleeding for her children, and she kept on weeping, and asking me a thousand questions about England, while she made coffee for me, and spread a white cloth over the kitchen table.

What would happen to her little ones?

Would the English be kind to them?

Would they be safe in England?

And over and over again she repeated the same sad little story of how she had sent them away, her three beloveds, George, Clare, and little Ada with the long fair curls; sent them away out of danger, and had never heard a word from them since the day she kissed them and bade them good-bye at the crowded train.

The whole of that day I remained in the kitchen there at the back of the café I could hear the Germans coming in and out.

They were blowing their own trumpets all the time, telling always of their victories.

Ada's little old husband would walk up and down, whistling the cheeriest pipe of a whistle I have ever heard.

It did me good to listen to him.

It brought before one in the midst of all this terror and ruin an image of birds.

At six o'clock that day, when dusk began to gather, Ada shut up the café, put out the lights, and she and her old husband and I sat together in the kitchen round the fire.

Presently, in came Henri, with my little bag, accompanied by Madame X. , and her big husband, and two enormous yellow dogs.

They told me that the Danish Doctor came back at three o'clock, asked for me, and was told I had gone to Holland.

"If it were not for the Danish Doctor I should feel quite safe," I said.

"Was he angry?"

"He was very surprised."

"Did he give you back my passport?"

"No." "Did he get the passport from his Consul?"

"He said so."

"Did he want to know how I got away?"

"He said he hoped you were safe."

"Did he believe you?"

"I don't know."

"Do you _think_ he believed you?"

"I don't know."

"Did he _look_ as if he believed you?"

"He looked surprised."

"And angry?"

"A little annoyed."

"Not _pleased?

_" "Perhaps!"

"And _very_ surprised?"

"Yes, very surprised."

"I don't believe that he believed you."

"Perhaps not."

"Perhaps he will try and find me?"

"But he is no spy," answered Henri.

"If he had wanted to betray you he would have done it last night."

"C'est ça!"

agreed the others.

"What did you know about him?"

I asked.

"What made you send him up to me, François?

Surely you wouldn't have told him about me unless you _knew_ he was trustworthy!"

"C'est ça!"

agreed big, fat, sad-eyed François.

"I have known him for some time.

I never doubted him.

I am sure he is to be trusted.

He has worked very hard among our wounded."

"But why did he speak with the Germans in the restaurant?"

"He is a Dane, he can speak as he chooses."

"Then you don't think he was speaking of _me_?"

"No, Madame!

C'est évident, n'est-ce-pas?

You have left the hotel in safety!"

"Perhaps he will ask Monsieur Claude where I am?"

"Monsieur Claude will tell him he knows nothing about you, has never seen you, never heard of you!"

"Perhaps he will ask Monsieur Claude's sister?"

"We must tell her not to tell him where you are."

"_What!

_" I started violently.

"Do you mean to say that you haven't warned her already not to tell him where I've really gone to?"

"But of course she will not tell him.

She is devoted to you, Madame."

"Call me Louisa."

"Louisa!"

"She might tell him to get rid of him," says Ada slowly.

"C'est ça!"

agree the others thoughtfully.

And at that all the terror of last night returns to me.

It returns like a _memory_, but it is troublous all the same.

And then, opening my bag to inspect its contents, I suddenly see a big strange key.

What is this?

And then remembrance rushes over me.

It is the key that Mr. Lucien Arthur Jones gave me, the key of the furnished house in Antwerp.

A house!

Fully furnished, and fully stored with food!

And no occupants!

And no Germans!

In a flash I decided to get into that house as quickly as possible.

It was the best possible place of hiding.

It was so good, indeed, that it seemed like a fairy tale that I should have the key in my possession.

And then, with another flash, I decided that I could never face going into that house _alone_.

My nerves would refuse me.

I

had asked a good deal of them lately, and they had responded magnificently.

But they turned against living alone in an empty house in Antwerp, quite definitely and positively, they turned against that.

Casting a swift glance about me, I took in that group of faces round the kitchen fire.

Who were they, these people?

François, and Lenore, Henri, Ada, and the little old grey-moustached man whistling like a bird, who were they?

Why were they here among the Germans?

Why had they not fled with the million fugitives.

Was it possible they were spies?

For I knew now, beyond all doubting, that there were indeed such things as spies, though the English mind finds it almost impossible to believe in the reality of something so dedicated to the gentle art of making melodrama.

Until three days ago I had never seen these people in my life.

I knew absolutely nothing about them.

Perhaps they were even now carefully drawing the net around me.

Perhaps I was already a prisoner in the Germans' hands.

And yet they were all I had in the way of acquaintances, they were all I had to trust in.

Could I trust them?

I looked at them again.

It was strange, and rather wonderful, to have nothing on earth to help one but one's own judgment.

Then Ada's voice reached me.

"Voici, Louisa!"

she is saying.

"Voici le photographie de mon Georges."

And she bends over me with a little old locket, and inside I see a small boy's fair, brave little face, and Ada's tears splash on my hand....

"I sent them away because I feared the Alboches might harm them," she breaks out, uncontrollably.

"For mon Mari and myself, we have no fear!

And we had not money for ourselves to go.

But my Georges, and my Clare, and my petite Ada--I could not bear the thought that the Alboches might hurt them.

Oh, mes petites, mes petites!

They wept so.

They did not want to go.

'Let us stay here with you, Mama.'

But I made them go.

I sold my bijoux, my all, to get money enough for them to go to England.

Oh, the English will be good to them, won't they, Louisa?

Tell me the English will be good to my petites."

Sometimes, in England since, when I have heard some querulous suburban English heart voicing itself grandiloquently, out of the plethora of its charity-giving, as "_a bit fed up with the refugees_" I think of myself, with a passionate sincerity and fanatic belief in England's goodness and justice, assuring that weeping mother that her Georges and Clare and little Ada with the long hair curls would be cared for by the English--the tender, generous, grateful English--as though they were their own little ones--even better perhaps, even better!

Ada's tears!

They wash away my fears.

My heart melts to her, and I tell her straightway about the house in the avenue L. "But how splendid!"

she cries exuberantly.

"Quel chance, Louisa, quel chance!"

cries Lenore.

"To-morrow morning we shall all take you there!"

declares Henri.

Their surprise, their delight, allay my last lingering doubts.

"But mind," I urge them feverishly.

"You must never let the Danish Doctor know that address."

That night I sleep in a feather-bed in a room at the top of dear Ada's house.

Or try to sleep!

Alas, it is only trying.

My windows look on a long narrow street, a dead street, full of empty houses, and from these houses come stealing with louder and louder insistence the sounds of those imprisoned dogs howling within the barred doors of the empty houses.

Their cries are terrible, they are starving now and perishing of thirst.

They yelp and whine, and wail, they bark and shriek and plead, they sob, they moan.

They send forth blood-curdling cries, in dozens, in hundreds, from every street, from every quarter, these massed wails go up into the night, lending a new horror to the dark.

And through it all the Germans sleep, they make no attempt either to destroy the poor tortured brutes, or to give them food and water, they are to be left there to die.

Hour after hour goes by, I bury my head under a pillow, but I cannot shut out those awful sounds, they penetrate through everything, sometimes they are death-agonies; the dogs are giving up, they can suffer no longer.

They understand at last that mankind, their friend, who has had all their faith and love, has deserted them, and then with fresh bursts of howling they seem afresh to make him listen, to make him realize this dark and terrible thing that has come to them, this racking thirst and hunger that he has been so careful to provide against before, even as though they were his children, his own little ones, not his dogs.

And, they howl, and cry, the dead city listens, and gives no sign, and they shiver, and shriek, and wail, but in vain, in vain.

It is the most awful night of my life!

CHAPTER XLV A SAFE SHELTER

Next morning at ten o'clock, Lenore and I and the ever-faithful Henri (carrying my parrot, if you please!

) and Ada strolled with affected nonchalance through the Antwerp streets where a pale gold sun was shining on the ruins.

Germans were everywhere.

Some were buying postcards, some sausages.

Motor cars dashed in and out full of grey or blue uniforms.

Fair, grave, sardonic faces were to be seen now, where only a few brief days ago there had been naught but Belgians' brave eyes, and lively, tender physiognomy.

Our little party was silent, depressed.

I wore a handkerchief over my head, tied beneath my chin, a big black apron, and a white shawl, and I kept my arm inside Henri's. "Voici, Madame," he exclaimed suddenly.

"Voilà les Anglais."

"Et les Anglaises," gasped Ada under her breath.

We were just then crossing the Avenue de Kaiser--that once gay, bright Belgian Avenue where I had so often walked with Alice, my dear little _Liègeoise_, now fled, alas, I knew not where.

A procession was passing between the long lines of fading acacias.

A

huge waggon, some mounted Germans, two women.

"Oh, mon Dieu!"

says Ada.

Lying on sacks in the open waggon are wounded English officers, their eyes shut.

And trudging on foot behind the waggon, with an indescribable steadfastness and courage, is an English nurse in her blue uniform, and a tall, thin, erect English lady, with grey hair and a sweet face under a wide black hat.

"They are taking them to Germany!"

whispers Henri in my ear.

"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!"

moans Ada under her breath.

"Oh, les pauvres Anglaises!"

It was all I could do to keep from flying towards them.

An awful longing came over me to speak to them, to sympathise, to do something, anything to help them, there alone among the Germans.

It was the call of one's race, of one's blood, of one's country.

But it was madness.

I must stand still.

To speak to them might mean bad things for all of us.

And even as I thought of that, the group vanished round the corner, towards the station.

As we walked along we examined the City.

Ah, how shocking was the change!

People are wont to say of Antwerp that it was very little damaged.

But in truth it suffered horribly, far beyond what anyone who has not seen it can believe.

The burning streets were still on fire.

The water supply was still cut off.

The burning had continued ever since the bombardment.

I looked at the Hotel St. Antoine and shivered.

A few days ago Sir Frederick Greville and Lady Greville of the British Embassy had been installed in that hotel and countless Belgian Ministers.

The Germans had tried hard to shell it, but their shells had fallen across the road instead.

All the opposite side of the street lay flat on the ground, smouldering, and smoking, in heaps of spread-out burning ruins.

At last we reached the house for which I had the key.

From the outside it was dignified, handsome, thoroughly Belgian, standing in a street of many ruined houses.

Trembling, I put the key into the lock, turned it, and pushed open the door.

Then I gasped.

"Open Sesame" indeed!

For there, stretching before me, was a magnificent hall, richly carpeted, with broad, low marble stairs leading upwards on either side to strangely-constructed open apartments lined with rare books, and china, and silver.

We crept in, and shut the door behind us.

Moving about the luxurious rooms and corridors, with bated breath, on tip-toe we explored.

No fairy tale could reveal greater wonders.

Here was a superb mansion stocked for six months' siege!

In the cellars were huge cases of white wines, and red wines, and mineral waters galore.

In the pantries we found hundreds of tins of sardines, salmon, herrings, beef, mutton, asparagus, corn, and huge bags of flour, boxes of biscuits, boxes of salt, sugar, pepper, porridge, jams, potatoes.

At the back was a garden, full of great trees, and grass, and flowers, with white roses on the rose-bush.

Agreeable as was the sight, there was yet something infinitely touching in this beautiful silent home, deserted by its owners, who, secure in the impregnability of Antwerp, had provided themselves for a six months' siege, and then, at the last moment, their hopes crushed, had fled, leaving furniture, clothes, food, wines, everything, just for dear life's sake.

Tender-hearted Ada wept continually as she moved about.

"Oh, the poor thing!"

she sighed every now and then.

And forgetting herself and her own grief, her angel heart would overflow with compassion for these people whom she had never seen, never heard of until now.

For the first time for days I felt safe, and when Lenore (Madame X. ) and her husband promised to come and stay there with me, and bring Jeanette and the old grandmère from the hospital I was greatly relieved.

In fact if it had not been for the Danish Doctor I should have been quite happy.

They all came in that afternoon, and Henri too, and how grateful they were to get into that nest.

We quickly decided to use only the kitchen, and Lenore and her husband shewed such a respect for the beauties of the house, that I knew I had done right in bringing the poor refugees here.

Through the barred kitchen windows, from behind the window curtains, we watched the endless rush of the German machinery.

Occasionally Germans would come and knock at the door, and Lenore would go and answer it.

When they found the house was occupied they immediately went away.

So I had the satisfaction of knowing that I was saving that house from the Huns.

The haunted noontide silence of my solitary walk seemed like a dream now.

Noise without end went on.

All day long the Germans were rushing their machineries through the Chaussée de Malines, or Rue Lamarinière, or along the Avenue de Kaiser.

At some of the monsters that went grinding along one stared, gasping, realising for the first time what _les petits Belges_ had been up against when they had pitted courage and honour and love of liberty against machinery like that.

Three days afterwards along the road from Lierre two big guns moved on locomotives towards Aerschot, suggesting by their vastness that immense mountain peaks were journeying across a landscape.

I felt physically ill when I saw the size of them.

A hundred and fifty portable kitchens ensconced in motor cars also passed through the town, explaining practically why all the Germans look so remarkably well-fed.

Motor cycles fitted with wireless telegraphy, motor loads of boats in sections, air-sheds in sections, and trams in sections dashed by eternally.

The swift rush of motor cars seemed never to end.

Yet, busy as the Germans were, and feverishly concentrated on their new activities, they still found time to carry out their system as applied to their endeavours to win the Belgian people's confidence in their kindness and justice as Conquerors!

They paid for everything they bought, food, lodging, drink, everything.

They asked for things gently, even humbly.

They never grumbled if they were kept waiting.

They patted the children's heads.

Over and over again I heard them saying the same thing to anybody who would listen.

"We love you Belgians!

We _know_ how brave you are.

We only wanted to go through Belgium.

We would never have hurt it.

And we would have paid you for any damage we did.

We don't hate the French either.

They are '_bons soldats_,' the French!

But the '_Englisch_' (and here a positive hiss of hatred would come into their guttural voices), the '_Englisch_' are false to _everyone.

_ It was they who made the war.

It is all their fault, whatever has happened.

We didn't want this war.

We did all we could to stop it.

But the '_Englisch_' (again the hiss of hatred, ringing like cold steel through the word) wanted to fight us, they were jealous of us, and they used you poor brave Belgians as an excuse!"

That was always the beginning of their Litany.

Then they would follow the Chant of their victories.

"And now we are going to Calais!

We shall start the bombardment of England from there with our big guns.

Before long we shall all be in London."

And then would come the final strain, which was often true, as a matter of fact, in addition to being wily.

"I've left my good home behind me and my dear good wife, and away there in the Vaterland I have seven children awaiting my return.

So you can imagine if _I_ and men like me, wanted this war!"

It was generally seven children.

Sometimes it was more.

But it was never less!

The system was perfect, even about as small a thing as that!