The Way of the Air 16

The Way of the Air 16

CHAPTER XXI

 

A TRUE STORY OF THE WAR

 

(BEING PART OF THE DIARY OF AN INHABITANT)

 

 

_Somewhere in Belgium,

Sunday._

 

Sunday again, but hardly to be imagined in these troublous times and

places, with adventure for one’s bedfellow, war for one’s profession,

and bloodshed and horrors for one’s constant reflection. Despite all

this there exists, and must always exist in every war that peculiar

intermingling, that strange blend of horror and sentiment, hate and

romance, that mixture of dross and gold. The feelings and actions

that bring out all that is the most savage, the most primitive in

man’s nature, at the same time endowing him with the tenderness and

unselfishness of a woman, the courage of a hero, and the fortitude and

forbearance of a saint. Romance! I have a most charming instance to

give to you my dear M----.

 

We met him first in December, 1914, in the little old-world town of

S----. In fact I had the good fortune to be billeted upon him. The

better class, or rather all those inhabitants who could afford it,

had fled from the town at the first advance of the Hun hordes. But he

had elected to risk his neck, and stay to comfort, and if possible

to protect, the women and children. He was a queer old character was

Père Dreyfus; he had lived in the little town now thirty years, since

he came there first as a stripling curate. His curling brown hair had

turned to an austere gray, his cheeks were hollow and shrunken, and

his old back was bent almost double with shouldering other people’s

burdens. By the general population he was almost idolized, men, women

and even small children brought their troubles to Père Dreyfus, and

they never went away without receiving the closest attention, and the

warmest sympathy. As they loved and idolized him, so he reciprocated

their feelings, and never tired of talking of them, in the long dark

evenings, when we had the pleasure of sharing his company over a glass

of old port, with Monsieur le Maire. He would relate vividly and with

force, how in the great advance, the Uhlan patrols had ridden into the

town, camped there for thirty-six hours, then returned the way they

had come without, strange to say, molesting any of the population. But

there was one thing that Père Dreyfus did not believe in, and that was

the air.

 

“Bah,” he was wont to say, with a contemptuous snap of his bony

fingers; “mere playthings, toys, those air-machines, toys that will be

shot down before they have been in the air for half-an-hour on end.” He

had incidentally never seen an aeroplane in flight, and little did he

guess how those mere playthings were to affect his own life.

 

The cold, dreary winter had blossomed forth into glorious spring-tide,

when again I came to S----. The old town had not changed much; if

anything it was sleepier and drearier than ever. My first visit was

to the little corner house by the great stone church; but the little

corner house was no more, in its place was a pile of shattered masonry.

With vague misgivings I sought M. le Maire, and found him in his

stuffy, dingy little office in the Hôtel de Ville. He was poring over

some musty documents as I entered, but immediately left them to shake

me effusively by the hand. “But where is Père Dreyfus?” I demanded of

him. Where? He gave that impressive shrug of the shoulders peculiar to

the Latin, and rolled his eyes meaningly towards the heavens.

 

“Dead?” I exclaimed. “How did he die?”

 

“Ze airplanes,” he replied; “how you call them? Ze flying machines come

one night, and drop a bomb. When I go search in ze morning, ze worthy

Father is no more.”

 

Thus briefly, in as many words he recounted another tragedy of this

awful war. Fortune is, indeed, a fickle jade. It had been her will

that.... But there, the story is best told in the worthy Father’s own

words. I quote extracts from a little diary that it was his habit to

keep, and which was all that now remained to enable us to glean a true

glimpse of the old Father’s personal feelings in the matter.

 

_Monday._--The incessant thunder of heavy artillery the whole

night long. Thus it has been for the past fourteen months,

night after night without a break. I notice it no longer; it

has become part and parcel of my everyday existence. Up at ----

yesterday those devils shot Meurice. For what reason I have

not yet heard. I wonder what has become of his wife and two

children? God help them if they are in their hands! Yesterday

as I walked from ---- I noticed high up in the sky three black

specks coming over in a north-easterly direction. Our soldiers

said they were German aeroplanes, but they passed away again

without attempting to drop any bombs. It is not these things

that we fear, but those fiendish 17-inch shells, which come

over sometimes in the middle of the night and tear away a

street of houses, killing, wounding, maiming. Unhappy Belgium.

 

_Wednesday._--No change! M. le Maire asked me if I would billet

two British soldiers to-day. I found them pleasant fellows

enough; young lieutenants of an infantry regiment. Such youths,

one of them cannot be more than eighteen years of age: a

handsome boy, with the deep blue eyes and fair curling hair,

typical of his race. They appear to regard the war more in the

light of a big picnic. But they have not yet been up to the

firing lines, nor seen the terrors of battle. Again to-day two

enemy air machines came over. They hit Laroche’s wine store

and killed him and his wife and children. Nevertheless, I

cannot help thinking that they are but of minor importance when

compared with those diabolical shells.

 

_Thursday._--The two soldiers left again this afternoon,

smiling and joking as they came. All the afternoon and far

into the night the infantry have been marching past, along

the road, thousands of them, regiment after regiment, with

their bands playing gayly at their head. The men all happy and

contented, marching as if they were going on parade, instead

of up to the firing line, many of them never to return. They

have brave hearts these English! Many wagons of ammunition have

been placed in the wood behind this house. They call it an

ammunition park. Why, I know not.

 

_Friday._--All to-day it rained and thundered. Thundered as

if God in His Heaven were venting His wrath on the warring

world below. For one long day there has been no booming of

those awful guns. The road has become bare and deserted. In

the evening came men into my house from the ammunition wagons

in the wood. They told me that they had caught a spy. I am not

surprised; this district swarms with them. But what otherwise

can be expected if, previous to the war, the entire business

relations of the neighborhood were conducted with the Germans?

Every purchasable article from a motor-car to a needle was

supplied from Berlin. This man was discovered in a deserted

part of the wood, sending messages on a telegraph key. A

sapper of the engineers saw the wire laid across the ground,

and curious to know whither it led followed it along until

he discovered this man. He will trouble us no more. But the

unhappy result of it is, they say he signaled the position to

the enemy, who will undoubtedly bombard us when the weather

becomes fine again.

 

_Saturday._--A fine clear morning. I hoped that the words of

the sapper would prove themselves to be incorrect, and so they

were to a certain degree. Anxiously I awaited the bombardment,

and it must be confessed with a great misgiving in my heart.

Ten o’clock! Eleven o’clock! Twelve o’clock! And still they did

not open fire. But just before one a German Taube flew over.

Unlike the air machine in the previous visits it did not fly

away immediately, but came gradually lower in long sweeping

circles, until with my glasses I was able to distinguish the

two black crosses on the wings. Then the pom-poms began to bark

and screech, and the heavens all round were marked with small

white clouds of smoke no bigger than a man’s hand in size, and

fascinating to watch. He was a cool fellow, the pilot of that

air machine: undismayed by the bursting shrapnel he continued

to circle round overhead, as if taking the exact bearings of

the ammunition camp.

 

_Monday._--I was roused from my bed by a series of violent

explosions. It is that infernal bombardment come at last, I

thought to myself. But no! The air above was filled with a

loud hum as of a hundred motors. I looked above me to find the

face of the sky darkened with aircraft, all of them with the

black cross on either wing; from all sides they appeared to be

circling in. And every moment there would be the unpleasant

rush of the falling bomb. A shattering explosion. A burst

of flame! And the yell or cry of the dead and dying, the

heartbreaking neigh of a wounded horse, the crash of falling

timber. The series of smaller explosions as the ammunition and

cartridges went off. For ten awful moments this continued, bomb

followed bomb, explosion followed explosion, shrieks, cries,

groans. It was a living hell. My God, these aircraft are more

to be feared than those infernal guns. I--I----

 

Here the old Father’s narrative ends, and across the page were two dull

brown splashes, that tell their story but too plainly.