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VoiceXML 2 0 Developer s Guide Building Professional
Voice Enabled Applications With JSP ASP and
Coldfusion 1st Edition Dreamtech Software India Digital
Instant Download
Author(s): Dreamtech Software India
ISBN(s): 9780072224580, 0072224584
Edition: 1st
File Details: PDF, 4.72 MB
Year: 2002
Language: english
TE
AM
FL
Y
 VoiceXML 2.0
Developer’s Guide
Building Professional Voice-Enabled
Applications with JSP™, ASP, & ColdFusion®
About the Authors
Charul Shukla is a senior programmer at DreamTech Software India, Inc. He has an
excellent track record designing and implementing large-scale applications for the latest
environments. An expert in web-based development and voice-based applications, he is
actively engaged in designing and developing solutions using VoiceXML and related
technologies.
Avnish Dass and Vikas Gupta are the co-founders of DreamTech Software India, Inc.
Avnish is a talented and seasoned programmer with 15 years of experience in systems and
database programming. He has developed numerous security systems, anti-virus programs,
wireless and communication technologies, and voice-based solutions. Vikas holds a B.E. in
electronics, with postgraduate degrees in sales and marketing and in Publishing and Printing
Studies. He is currently engaged in developing and designing new technologies for wireless
and voice-based applications, e-learning, and other cutting-edge areas.
 VoiceXML 2.0
Developer’s Guide
Building Professional Voice-Enabled
Applications with JSP™, ASP, & ColdFusion®

Dreamtech Software India, Inc.

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DOI: 10.1036/0072228091
 To our parents, family and colleagues, and our beloved
country, India, for providing an excellent environment in which
to nurture and create world-class IT talent.
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Contents at a Glance
Chapter 1 Web and Voice Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter 2 Designing Guidelines for Voice Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Chapter 3 Working with VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Chapter 4 Advanced Elements of VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Chapter 5 Grammars in VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Chapter 6 Developing a Voicemail System Using ASP and VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . 139
Chapter 7 Using VoiceXML and JSPs for Movie Reservation Systems . . . . . . . . 159
Chapter 8 Developing a Voice-based Banking System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
Chapter 9 Integrating CCXML with VoiceXML Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Chapter 10 Introduction to the Microsoft Web Telephony Engine . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Chapter 11 Introduction to IP Telephony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Chapter 12 Developing a Voice-based Shopping Mall with ASP . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Chapter 13 Developing Voice Applications with SALT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

vii
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Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Chapter 1 Web and Voice Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction to Telephone Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Public Switched Telephone Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Introduction to Computer Telephony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Internet Telephony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Interactive Voice Response Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Speech Synthesis Process and Engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Process of Speech Synthesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Speech Recognition Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Voice Markup Languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
SpeechML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
JSML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
TalkML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
VoxML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Introduction to VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Different Implementations of VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Commercial Aspects of VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Implementation Possibilities of VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter 2 Designing Guidelines for Voice Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Understanding Voice Sites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

ix
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x VoiceXML 2.0 Developer’s Guide

Identifying the Target Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Types of Callers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Serving Different Age Groups of Callers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Content Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Starting from Scratch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Deciding on the Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Organizing the Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Designing the Dialog Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Designing the Navigation Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Y
Dialogs Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

FL
Bridging the Delay Factor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Using Voice-Activated Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
AM 31
Globally Accessible Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Migration from the Existing System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Designing Dialogs and Prompts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
TE

Designing the Voice Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Designing the Prompts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Chapter 3 Working with VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Architecture of VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Web Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
VoiceXML Interpreter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Application Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The Concept of Voice Dialogs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Execution Process of VoiceXML Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Executing a Multidocument-based Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Root to Root-level Transaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Root-level Documents to Sublevel Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Sublevel Document to Sublevel Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Navigation in VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
The <link> Element in VoiceXML 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
The <link> Element in VoiceXML 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
 Contents xi

Getting Input from the User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Types of Form Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Types of Field Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Types of Control Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Form Interpretation Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Initialization Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Select and Collect Phases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Process Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Chapter 4 Advanced Elements of VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Types of Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Mixed Initiative Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Event Handling in VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
The <throw> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
The <catch> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Variables in VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Resource Fetching and Caching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
fetchtimeout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
fetchint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
maxage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
maxsatale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Caching in VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Defining Prompts in VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Using Speech Markup Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Other Elements in VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
The <assign> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
The <clear> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
The <if> element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
The <script> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
The <exit> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
xii VoiceXML 2.0 Developer’s Guide

Chapter 5 Grammars in VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

The Role of Grammars in VoiceXML Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
The <grammar> Element in VoiceXML 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Grammars in VoiceXML 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Augmented Backus-Naur Form Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
XML-based Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
The <grammar> Element in VoiceXML 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
The Scope of Grammars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Field Grammars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Link Grammars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Form Grammars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Menu Grammars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Grammar Activation Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Preparing Grammars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
The <rule> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
The <ruleref> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
The <one-of> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
The <count> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Chapter 6 Developing a Voicemail System Using ASP and VoiceXML . . . . . . . . . 139

Voicemail Application Design Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
The Case for VoiceXML-based Mailing Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
Architecture of a VoiceXML-based Mailing Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Assumptions Made in Developing the Voicemail Application . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Preparing the Home Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Preparing the Login Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Accessing the Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Retrieving the Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Replying to the Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Chapter 7 Using VoiceXML and JSPs for Movie Reservation Systems . . . . . . . 159
Application Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
 Contents xiii

Architecture of the Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Assumptions Made in Developing the Movie Reservation Application . . . . . . . 161
Structure of the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Building the Home Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Displaying the Movie List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Collecting the Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Displaying the Current Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Writing the Reservation Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Final Episode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Chapter 8 Developing a Voice-based Banking System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Architecture of the Voice Banking Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
Database Structure for the Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Customer Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Account_statement Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Cheque_status Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Current_account Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Order_bank Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
Saving_Account Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Transfer Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Preparing the Login Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Collecting the Customer Identification Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Authenticating the Customer Identification Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Collecting the Telephone Identification Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Authenticating the Telephone Identification Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Building the Main Menu of the Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Designing the Inquiry Module Main Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Building the Account Balance Inquiry Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Building the Account Statement Inquiry Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Building the Cheque Statement Inquiry Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Designing the Transfer Money Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Writing Code for Transferring Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222
Designing the Order Chequebook and Bank Statement Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
xiv VoiceXML 2.0 Developer’s Guide

Building the Order Chequebook Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Building the Order Bank Statement Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Chapter 9 Integrating CCXML with VoiceXML Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Introduction to Call Control Extensible Markup Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
Event Processing Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Conferencing Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Call Management Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Document Flow and Execution Process in CCXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
The <ccxml> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
The <dialogstart> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
The <dialogterminate> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
The <if> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
The <goto> and <fetch> Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
The <createccxml> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Working with Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Event Handling in CCXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Standard Events in CCXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Call Management in CCXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Incoming Call-related Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Outgoing Call-related Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Conference Management in CCXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
The <destroyconference> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
The <join> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243
The <unjoin> Element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Disconnecting Calls in CCXML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Chapter 10 Introduction to the Microsoft Web Telephony Engine . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Introduction to the Web Telephony Engine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Advantages of WTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
Features of WTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
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second-class, thereby incurring a small measure of seclusion and a
larger one of boredom. In Class Three it is never dull. You may be
offered cakes or a hunk of bread which has entered into unwilling
alliance with sausage, you may be invited to drink the health of the
Allies in rank red wine, or you may be offered a faithful heart,
lifelong adoration and an income of five sous a day. Or (but for this
you must keep your ears wide open, for the train makes un bruit
infernale, and speech is a rapid, vivacious, eager thing in France)
you may hear tales of the war, episodes of the trenches, comments
upon the method of the Boche, things many of them hardly fit for
publication but drawn naked and quivering from the wells of life.
Unless he has been refreshing a vigorous thirst, the poilu is rarely
unmanageable. He is the cheekiest thing in the universe, he has a
twinkle in his eye that can set a whole street aflame, and he is filled
with an accommodating desire to go with you just as far as you
please. Nevertheless, he can take a hint quicker than any man I
know, and his genius in extricating himself from a difficult situation
is that of the inspired tactician.
Madame B., pursuing her philanthropic way, came out of a shop one
day to find a spruce poilu comfortably ensconced in her carriage.
With arms folded and legs crossed he surveyed the world with
conquering eyes.
"I am coming for a drive with you," he remarked genially, and his
smile was the smile of a seductive angel, his assurance that of a
king.
"Au contraire," replied Madame B. (the poilu was not for her, as for
us, an undiscovered country bristling with possibilities of adventure),
and his abdication was the most graceful recorded in history.
Now, I wouldn't advise you to accept every offer of companionship
you get from a poilu, but you may accept some. More than one
tedious mile of road is starred for me with memories of childlike,
simple souls, burning with curiosity about all things English, and
above all about the independent female bipeds who have no
apparent fear of man, God or devil, nor even—bien entendu—of that
most captivating of all created things, the blue-coated, trench-
helmeted French soldier.
"You march well, Mademoiselle; you would make a fine soldier."
Thus a voice behind me as I swung homewards down the hill one
chilly evening. A sense of humour disarms me on these occasions.
One day, no doubt, it will lead me into serious trouble. I didn't wither
him. One soon learns when east winds should blow, and when the
sun, metaphorically speaking, may shine. We walked amicably into
Bar together, and before we parted he told me all about the little
wife who was waiting for him in Paris, and the fat baby who was
tout-à fait le portrait de son père.
So ponder long and carefully before you choose your carriage, but if
your ponderings are as long as this digression you will never get to
Révigny. Even an omnibus train starts some time, and generally
when you least expect it.
At Mussey if you crane your head out of the window you may see
two wounded German prisoners, white-faced, mud-caked wretches
who provoke no comment. At Révigny you will see soldiers (if I told
you how many pass through in a day the Censor would order me to
be immersed in a vat of official ink); and you will see ruins. The
Town Hall is an eyeless skeleton leering down the road, the Grande
Place—there is no Grande Place, there is only a scattered confusion
of fire-charred stones and desiccated brick.
It was rather foggy that Sunday morning and the town looked used
up. Not an attractive place in its palmiest days we decided as we
slung our luncheon bags over our shoulders and set out for Villers.
Away to the left we could see Brabant-le-Roi, and it was there some
weeks later that I assisted at the incineration of a pig. He lay by the
roadside in a frame of blazing straw. Flames lapped his ponderous
flanks, and swept across his broad back, blue smoke curled around
him, an odour of roasting pig hung in the air. A crowd of women and
soldiers stood like devotees about a shrine. The flames leaped, and
fell. Then came men who lifted him up and laid him on a stretcher.
In his neck there was a gaping wound, and out of the fire that
refined him he was no longer an Olympian sacrifice, he was
mouldering pig, dead pig, black pig, nauseating, horrible. I turned to
fly, but a voice detained me.
"Madame Bontemps will be killing to-morrow. If Mademoiselle would
like to see?"
But "to-morrow" Mademoiselle was happily far on her way to Troyes,
and the swan-song of Madame Bontemps' gros cochon fell on more
appreciative ears.
However, on that Sunday morning in September there was no pig,
and our "satiable curiosity" led us far from poor battered Brabant.
Our road was to the right and "uphill all the way." The apple trees on
the Route Nationale were crusted with ripe red fruit, but we resisted
temptation, our only loot being a shell-case which we discovered in a
field, which was exceedingly heavy and with which we weighted
ourselves for the sake of an enthusiastic youngster at home. My arm
still aches when I think of that shell-case, for by this time the sun
had burst out, it was torridly hot, the apple trees gave very little
shade, and our too, too solid flesh was busily resolving itself into a
dew.
However, we persevered, the object of our pilgrimage being a square
hole dug in a sunny orchard on the brow of the hill above Villers.
Some rude earthen steps gave access to it, the roof was supported
by two heavy beams, and the floor and sides were lined with carved
panels wrenched from priceless old armoires taken from the village.
It is known as the Crown Prince's Funk Hole, and the story goes that
from its shelter he ordered, and subsequently watched, the
destruction of the village. The dug-out, a makeshift affair, the Crown
Prince's tenancy being of short duration, is well placed. The hill falls
away behind it, running at right angles to the opening there is a
thick hedge, trees shelter it, the line of a rough trench or two, now
filled in, runs protectingly on its flank. The fighting in this region was
open, a war of movement lasting only a few days, so trench lines are
not very plentiful. Just opposite the mouth of the dug-out there is a
fenced-in cross, a red képi hangs on the point, a laurel wreath tied
with tri-coloured ribbon is suspended from the arms. "An unknown
French soldier." Did he fall there in the rush of battle, or did he creep
up hoping to get one clean neat shot at the Prince of Robbers and
so put him out of action for ever?
As for Villers itself, it was wiped out of existence. One house, and
only one, remains, and even that is battered. One might speculate a
little on the psychology of houses. The pleasant fire-cracker pastilles
that wrought so much havoc elsewhere were impotent here. The
Germans flung in one after another, we were told, using every
incendiary device at their disposal, but that house refused to burn.
There it stands triumphantly in its tattered garden, not far from the
church, and when I saw it an old woman with a reaping-hook in her
hand was standing by the hedge watching me with curious eyes. We
had separated, my companion and I, farther down the long village
street, she to meditate among the ruins, I to mourn over the
shattered belfry-tower, the bell hurled to the ground, the splintered
windows, the littered ruined interior. In the cemetery were many
soldiers' graves; on one inscribed, "Two unknown German officers,"
some one had scribbled "À bas les Boches," the only instance that
came to my knowledge of the desecration of a German grave. And
even here contrition followed fast upon the heels of anger, and
heavy scrawlings did their best to obliterate the bitter little phrase.
The French—in the Marne at least—have been scrupulous in their
reverence for the German dead, the graves are fenced in just as
French graves are, and the name whenever possible printed on the
cross. I suppose that even the soppiest sentimentalist would not ask
that they should be decorated with flowers?
As I left the graveyard and looked back at the desolation that once
was Villers, but where even now wooden houses were springing
hopefully from the ground, the old woman with the reaping-hook
spoke to me. My dress betrayed me; she knew without asking that I
was British. And, as is the way with these French peasants, she fell
easily and naturally into her story. I wish I could tell it to you just as
she told it to me, but I know I shall never find her simple dignity of
phrase, or her native instinct for the mot juste. However, such as it
is you shall have it, and if it please you not, skip. That refuge is
always open to the bored or tired reader.
II
Old Madame Pierrot was disturbed in spirit. She could see the flames
leaping above burning villages across the plain, the earth shook with
the menace of the guns, the storm was rising, every moment
brought the waves of the encroaching sea nearer to her home. Yet
people said that Villers was safe. The Germans could never get so
far as that, they would be turned back long before they reached the
hill. She was alone in her comfortable two-storied house (the house
she had built only a few years before, and which had a fine yard
behind it closed in by spacious stables, cow-houses and barns), and
she was sadly in need of advice. She had no desire whatever to
make the personal acquaintance of any German invader. Even the
honour of receiving the Crown Prince made no appeal to her soul.
She had heard something of his arch little ways and his tigerish
playfulness, and though she could hardly suppose that he would
favour a woman of her dried and lean years with special attention,
she reasonably feared that she might be called on to assist at one of
his festivals. And an Imperial degenerate will do that in public which
decent women are ashamed to talk about, much less to witness. So
Madame was perturbed in soul. The battle raged through the woods
and over the plain, it crept nearer ... nearer....
"Madame, Madame, come. Is it that you wish the Germans to get
you?" A wagon was drawn up at the door, in it were friends who
lived higher up the street. "Come with us to Laimont. You will be
safer there."
So they called to her and put an end to her doubt. Snatching up a
basket, she stuffed into it all the money she had in the house,
various family papers and documents, and then, just as she was, in
her felt-soled slippers with her white befrilled cap on her head, in
her cotton dress without even a shawl to cover her, she clambered
into the wagon and set out. Laimont was only a few miles away;
indeed, I think you can see the church spire and the roofs of the
houses from the hill. There the wagon halted. In a few hours the
Germans would be gone, and then one could go peaceably home
again. But time winged away, the battle raged more fiercely than
ever, soon perhaps Laimont itself would be involved and see hand-
to-hand fighting in its streets.
Laimont! Madame was desolée. Où aller? Farther south, farther
east? The Germans were everywhere. And voyager comme ça in her
old felt slippers, in her working clothes, without wrap or cloak to
cover her? Impossible. The wagon must wait. There was still time.
Ces salauds would not reach Laimont yet. Why, look! Villers itself
was free. There was no fire, no smoke rising on the hill. Her friends
would wait while she went back au grand galop to put on her boots,
and her bonnet and her Sunday clothes. "Hé, mon Dieu, it is not in
the petticoat of the fields that one runs over France."
Away she went, her friends promising to wait for her. Laden down by
the shell, we who were lusty and strong found the road from Villers
to Laimont unendingly long, yet no grisly fears gnawed at our heart-
strings, no sobs rose chokingly to be thrust back again ... and yet
again. Nor had we the hill to climb, and no shells were bursting just
ahead. So what can it have been for Madame? But she pressed on;
old, tired and, oh, so dismayed, she panted up the steep hill that
curls into the village, and walked right into the arms of the Crown
Prince's men. In a trice she was a prisoner, one of eighty, some of
whom were soldiers, the rest civilians, who, like herself, had
committed the egregious folly of being born west of the Rhine, and
were now about to suffer for it.
What particular crime Villers-aux-Vents had committed to merit
destruction I cannot tell. Perhaps it never committed any. The Crown
Prince was not always a minister of Justice promulgating sentence
upon crime. He was more often a Nero loving a good red blaze for
its own sake, or it may be an æsthete of emotion, a super-sensualist
of cruelty, or just a devil hot from the stones of hell.
Whatever the reason, Villers was doomed. Out came the pastilles
and the petrol-sprayers: the most determined destruction was
carried on. Not only were the houses themselves destroyed but the
outhouses, the stables, solid brick and mortar constructions running
back to a depth of several feet. And I gathered that the usual pillage
inaugurated the reign of fire.
Of this, however, Madame knew nothing. She and her seventy-nine
companions in misery were marched away to the north, mile after
mile to Stenay, and if you look at the map you will see that the
distance is not small, it was a march of several days.
Madame, as I have told you, was old, and her slippers had soles of
felt, and so the time came when her feet were torn and bleeding,
and when, famished and exhausted, she could no longer keep step
with her guards. Her pace became slower and slower. Ah, God, what
was that? Only the butt-end of a rifle falling heavily across her back.
She nerved herself for another effort, staggered on to falter once
more. Again the persuasion of the rifle. Again the shrewd, cruel
blow, and a bayonet flashing under her eyes.
A diet of black bread three times a day does not encourage one to
take violent exercise, but black bread was all that they got, and I
think the rifle-butts worked very hard during that long weary march.
On arrival they were herded into a church and then into a prison,
where they were brutally treated at first, but subsequently, when
French people were put in charge, found life a little less intolerable.
And later on some residents still living in the town were kind to her,
but during all the months—some eight or nine—that she was
imprisoned there she had no dress but the one, nothing to change
into, nothing to keep out the sharp winter cold.
Madame Walfard the basket-maker told me some gruesome tales
about Stenay, and what happened there, but this is not a book of
atrocities. Perhaps it ought to be, perhaps every one who is in a
position to do so should cry aloud the story in a clear clarion call to
the civilised world, but—isn't the story known? Can anything I have
to say add a fraction of a grain of weight to the evidence already
collected? Is the world even now so immature in its judgment that it
supposes that the men who sacked Louvain, the men who violated
Belgium behaved like gallant gentlemen in the sunnier land of
France? Do we not know all of us that, added to the deliberate
German method, there was the lasciviousness of drunkenness? That
the Germans poured into one of the richest wine-growing countries
in the world during one of the hottest months of the year, that their
thirst at all times is a mighty one, and when excited by the frenzy of
battle it was unassuageable? They drank, and they drank again.
They rioted in cellars containing thousands of bottles of good wine,
and they emerged no longer men but demons, whose officers
laughed to see them come forth, sure now that no lingering spark of
human or divine fire would hold them back from frightfulness.
Of course we know it was so, and therefore I am not going to dilate
upon horrors. Let the kharma of the Germans be their witness and
their judge. Only this in fairness should be told—that the behaviour
of the men varied greatly in different regiments. "It all depended
upon the Commandant," summed up one narrator, "and the first
armies were the worst."
"And the Crown Prince's army?" I asked; "what of that?"
He shrugged. What can be expected from the followers of such a
leader? Their exploits put mediæval mercenaries to shame.
Stenay must find another historian; but even while I refuse to
become the chronicler of atrocities, every line I write rises up to
confute me. For was not the very invasion of France an "atrocity"? Is
the word so circumscribed in its meaning that it contains only arson,
murder and rape? Does not the refinement of suffering inflicted
upon every refugee, upon every homeless sinistré, upon the basket-
makers of Vaux-les-Palamies as upon Madame Lassanne, and poor
old creatures like the Leblans fall within it too, and would not the
Germans stand convicted before the Tribunal of such narratives even
if the gross sins of the uncivilised beast had never been laid at their
door?
Madame Pierrot told me nothing about Stenay—perhaps she saw
nothing but the inside of her prison walls—but she told me a great
deal about the kindness of the Swiss when she crossed the frontier
one happy day, and the joy-bells were ringing in her heart. They
gave her food and drink, they overwhelmed her with sympathy, they
offered her clothes. But Madame said no. She was a propriétaire,
she had good land in Villers.
"Keep the clothes for others, they will need them more than I. In my
house at Villers-aux-Vents there are armoires full of linen and
underclothing, everything that I need. I can wait."
I often wonder whether realisation came to her at Révigny, or
whether, all ignorant of the tragedy, she walked blithely up the hill,
the joy-bells ringing their Te Deum in her heart, her thoughts flitting
happily from room to room, from armoire to armoire, conning over
again the treasures she had been parted from so long. Did she know
only as she turned the last sharp bend in the road and saw the
village dead at her feet? Ah, whether she knew as she trudged over
the much-loved road, or whether knowledge came only with sight,
what a home-coming was that! She found the answer to the eternal
question, "What shall we find when we return?" ... How many
equally poignant answers still lie hidden in the womb of time to be
brought forth in anguish when at last the day of restoration comes?
III
Even the longest story must come to an end some time, and so did
Madame Pierrot's. Conscience, tugging wildly at the strings of
memory, spoke to me of my lost comrade; the instinct of hospitality
asserted itself in Madame's soul. We were strangers, we must see
the sights. Would I go with her to her "house," and to the dug-out of
the Crown Prince? Yes? Bon. Allons. And away we trotted to gather
up the lost one among the ruins, to inspect the dug-out, to eat
delicious little plums which Madame gathered for us in the orchard,
and finally to be seized by the pangs of a righteous hunger which
simply shrieked for food. Where should we eat? Madame mourned
over her brick and rubble. If we had come before the war she would
have given us a déjeuner fit for a king. A good soup, an omelette,
des confitures, a cheese of the country, coffee, but now? "Regardez,
Mademoiselle. Ah que c'est triste. Il n'y a rien du tout, du tout, du
tout." And indeed there was nothing but a mound of material that
might have been mistaken for road rubbish.
Eventually she found a stone bench in the yard, and there we
munched our sandwiches while she flitted away, to come back
presently with bunches of green grapes, sweet enough but very
small. The vine had not been tended for a year, it was running wild.
They were not what ces dames should be given, but if we would
accept them? We would have taken prussic acid from her just then, I
believe, but fortunately it did not occur to her to offer it. She cut us
dahlias from her ragged garden (once loved and carefully tended),
and hearing that one of us was a connoisseur in shell-cases, bits of
old iron and other gruesome relics, rooted about until she found
another shell-case, with which upon our backs we staggered over to
Laimont.
And now let me hereby solemnly declare that if any one ever dares
to tell me that the French are inhospitable I will smite him with a
great and deadly smiting. I am not trying to suggest that they
clasped us in their arms and showered riches upon us within an hour
of our meeting. They showed a measure of sanity and caution in all
their ways. They waited to see what manner of men we were before
they flung wide their doors, but once the doors were wide the
measure of their generosity was only limited by the extent of our
need.
Was it advice, an introduction to an influential person, a string pulled
here, a barrier broken down there, Madame B. and Madame D. were
always at our service. Gifts of fruit and flowers came constantly to
our door, our bidons were miraculously filled with paraffin in a
famine which we, being foolish virgins, had not foreseen, or,
foreseeing, had not guarded against, and once in the heavy frost,
when wood was unobtainable in the town and the supply ordered
from Sermaize was over-long in coming, our lives were saved by a
bag of oak blocks which scented the house, and boulets that made
the stove glow with magnificent ardour. In every difficulty we turned
to Madame B. She helped us out of many an impasse, and whether
we asked her to buy dolls in Paris or, by persuading a General and
his Staff that without our timely aid France could never win the war,
to reconcile an Army Corps to our erratic activities in its midst, she
never failed us. When two of our party planned a week-end
shopping expedition to Nancy, it was Madame B. who discovered
that the inhabitants of that much-harassed town were leading frozen
lives in their cellars, and if she was sometimes electrifyingly candid
in her criticism, she was equally unstinted in her praise. Madame D.,
with her old-world courtesy, was no less hospitable, and many a
frantic S.O.S. brought her at top speed to our door.
From Monsieur C., who used to assure us that we dispensed our
gifts with a délicatesse that was parfait, and Madame K. showering
baskets of luscious raspberries, to the poorest refugee who begged
us to drink a glass of wine with her, or who deeply regretted her
inability to make some little return for the help we had given her,
they outvied one another in refuting the age-old libel on the
character of the French.
"But," cries some acidulated critic, "you would have us believe that
the poilu is a blue-winged angel, and the civilian too perfect to live."
Far from it. The poilu is only a man, the civilian only human, and I
have yet to learn that either—be he man or human—is perfect any
more than he, or his equivalent is perfect even in this perfect English
island in the sea. There are soldiers who.... There are civilians
who....
I guess the devil doesn't inject original sin into them with a two-
pronged hypodermic syringe any more than he injects it into us. The
good and the evil sprout up together, or are they the spiritual
Siamese twin that is born of every one of us to be a perpetual
confusion to our minds, a bewilderment to our bodies and a most
difficult progeny to rear at the best of times? For as surely as you
encourage one of the twins the other sets up a roar, sometimes they
howl together, sometimes one stuffs his fist down the other's throat.
And the bad one is hard to kill, and the good one has a tendency to
rickets. No wonder it is a funny muddle of a world.
And the French have their twin too, only theirs say la-la and ours say
damn, and if they keep an over-sharp eye on the sous, do we turn
our noses up at excess profits?
Of course some of them are greedy, perhaps greedier on the whole
than we are. Would any English village lock its wells when thirsty
children wailed at its door? I know an Irish one would not. But the
French are thrifty, and the majority of them would live comfortably
on what a British family wastes. They work hard too. They are
incredibly industrious, perhaps because they have to be.
France has not yet been inoculated with the virus of philanthropy, an
escape on which she may possibly be congratulated. The country is
not covered with a network of charitable societies overlapping and
criss-crossing like railway lines at a junction, nor have French women
of birth, independent means and superfluous energy our genius for
managing other people's affairs so well there is no time to look after
our own. The deserving poor run no risk of being pauperised, the
undeserving don't keep secretaries, committees and tribes of
enthusiastic females labouring heavily at their heels. The French
family in difficulties has to depend on its own resources, its own wit,
its own initiative and energy, and when I think of the way our
refugees dug themselves in in Bar-le-Duc, and scratched and
scraped, and hammered and battered at that inhospitable soil till
they forced a living from its breast, my faith in philanthropy and the
helping hand begins to wane.
Of course there are hard cases, where a little intelligent human
sympathy would transform suffering and sorrow into contentment
and joy, cases that send me flying remorsefully back to the altar of
organised charity with an offering in outstretched hand, but above
all these, over all the agony of war the stern independence of French
character has ridden supreme.
So let their faults speak for themselves. Who am I that I should
expose them to a pitiless world? Have I not faults of my own? See
how I have kept poor Madame Pierrot gathering dahlias in her
garden, and my comrade in adventure eating grapes upon a very
stony seat. So long that now there is no time to tell you how we
walked to Laimont and investigated more ruins there, and then how
we walked to Mussey where we comfortably missed our train, and
how a Good Samaritan directed us to a house, and how in the house
we found a little old lady whose son had been missing since August
1914, and who pathetically wondered whether we could get news of
him, and how a sauf-conduit had to be coaxed from the Mayor, and
the little old lady's horse harnessed to a car, and how two chairs
were planted in the car and we superficially planted on the chairs,
and how the old lady and a brigand clambered on to the board in
front, and how we drove down to Bar as the sun was setting. Nor
can I tell you how nearly we were run into by a motor-car, nor how
the old lady explained that the brigand was malheureusement nearly
blind, and that she, still more malheureusement, was rather deaf,
nor how we prayed as we clung desperately to the chairs which slid
and wobbled and rocked and oscillated, and rattled our bones while
all the military motor-cars in France sought our extermination.
Nor can I tell you how at a dangerous crossing the brigand drew up
his steed, and set up a wail because he had forgotten his cigarettes,
nor how one escapading female produced State Express which made
him splutter and cough, and nearly wreck us in the ditch (though
English tobacco is not nearly so strong as French), nor how we came
at last to Bar-le-Duc, nor how the old lady demanded a ridiculously
small fee for the journey, nor how I lost a glove, and the sentries
eyed us with suspicion, and the brigand who was blind and la
patronne who was deaf drove away in the fading light to Mussey, the
aroma of State Express trailing out behind them, and the old horse
plodding wearily in the dust.
 CHAPTER VIII
THE MODERN CALVARY
I
One day, not long after our visit to the battlefield, our composure
was riven to its very foundations by an invitation to play croquet in
the garden of Madame G. Could we spare an hour from our so
arduous toil? For her it would be a pleasure so great, the English
they love "le sport," they play all the games, we would show her the
English way. Monsieur her husband he adored croquet, but never,
never could he find any one to play with him. Madame, a little
swarthy woman who always dressed in rusty black, clasped her shiny
kid gloves together and gazed at us beseechingly. The Arbiter of our
destinies decided that we must go. There is always l'Entente, you
know, it should be encouraged at all hazards, a sentiment which
meets with my fullest approval when the hazard does not happen to
be mine.
Madame yearned that we should throw ourselves into "le sport" at
four, but the devil of malice, who sits so persistently on my shoulder,
arranged that I should be the only one free at that hour. The others
promised to come at half-past four.
"But, my dear women," I cried, "I haven't played croquet for ages."
"Never mind. Hit something, do anything. But go."
I went. I was ushered into a tiny and stuffy parlour, and there for
twenty interminable, brain-racking minutes I confronted Madame G.
Then an old lady in a bath-robe sidled into the room, and we all
confronted one another for ten minutes more. Madame G. may be a
devil of a fellow with a croquet-mallet in her hand, but small talk is
not her strong point. Neither is it mine, for the matter of that, when
I am slowly suffocating in a foreign land. However, we finally
adjourned to the garden. Where, oh where was the croquet ground?
Where, oh where were my faithless companions? Where, oh where
was tea? A quarter to five rang out from the tower of Nôtre Dame,
and here was I marooned on a French grass plot adorned with trees,
real trees, apple trees, plum trees, an enterprising pergola, several
flower-beds and, Heaven help me! croquet hoops—hoops that had
just happened, all anyhow, no two looking in the same direction. In
direct line of fire rose a tall birch tree. I gazed at it in despair. A
niblick, or a lofter, or a crane might get a ball over it, but a croquet
mallet?... Circumvention was impossible. There were three bunkers.
"It is like your English croquet grounds?" Madame asked. "We play
all the Sundays——"
"Ah, yes, through the Looking-glass," I murmured, and she
responded—
"Plaît-il?"
I hastily congratulated her on the condition of her fruit trees.
Five o'clock. What I thought of the faithless was by now so
sulphuric, blue flames must have been leaping out of me. Five-
fifteen. A Sail! The Arbiter, full of apologies, which did nothing to
soften the steely reproval in my eye. Then Madame disappeared. At
five-thirty she came back again accompanied by delinquent number
two. She held a hurried consultation with the bath-robe, then melted
again into the void.
"Can I go?" I signalled to the Arbiter. She shook a vigorous head.
The rattle of tea-cups was coming from afar. At a quarter to six
Madame announced tea. It was served in the dining-room. We all sat
round a square table very solemnly—it was evidently the moment of
Madame's life; there was no milk, we were expected to use rum—or
was it gin?—instead. Anyway I know it was white, and one of us
tried it, and I know ... well, politeness conquered, but she has been
a confirmed teetotaller ever since.
At six-five Madame was weeping as she recounted a tale she had
read in the paper a day or so before, and six-twenty-five we came
away.
"And we never played croquet after all. But you will come again
when Monsieur mon mari is here, for Les Anglaises they love 'le
sport.'"
But we never went back. Perhaps the tree-tops frightened us, or
perhaps we were becoming too much engrossed in sport of another
kind. You see, M. le Curé of N. came to visit us the next day, and
soon after that Madame Lassanne inscribed her name on our books.
Which shall I tell you about first? Madame Lassanne, who was a
friend of Madame Drouet, and actually succeeded in making her talk
for quite a long time on the stairs one day? I think so.
Perhaps to-morrow I shall tell you of M. Le Curé.
You see, it was really Madame Lassanne who first brought home to
me what war means to the civil population in an invaded district.
One guessed it all in a dim way before, of course, every imaginative
person does, but not in the way in which pain, desolation of spirit,
agony of soul, poignant anxiety drive their roots deep down into
Life; nor does one realise how small a thing is human life, how
negligible man when compared with the great god of War.
A French medical officer once said to me, "Mademoiselle, in war les
civiles n'ont pas le droit d'être malade," and I dared to reply,
"Monsieur, ils n'ont guère le droit de vivre." And he assented, for he
knew, knew that to a great extent it was true, only too pitiably true.
For the great military machine which exists in order that an
unshakable bulwark may be set up between the invader and the
civilians whom he would crush is, in its turn, and in order to keep
that bulwark firm, obliged to crush them himself. In the War Zone (it
is not too much to say it) the civilian is an incubus, an impediment, a
most infernal nuisance. He gets so confoundedly in the way. And he
is swept out of it as ruthlessly as a hospital matron sweeps dust out
of her wards. That he is confused and bewildered, thoroughly
désorienté, that he may be sick or feeble, that his wife may be about
to give birth to a child, that his house is in ashes and that he, once
prosperous, is now a destitute pauper, that his children trail pitifully
in the dust, footsore, frightened, terror-haunted to the very verge of
insanity, all these things from the military point of view matter
nothing. And it must be so. They dare not matter. If they did,
energies devoted to keeping that human bulwark in the trenches fit
and sound might be diverted into other channels, and the effort to
ameliorate and save become the hand of destruction, ruining all in
order to save a little.
Think of one village. There are thousands, and any one will do.
Anxiety and apprehension have lain over it for days, but the
inhabitants go about their work, eat, sleep, "carry on" much as
usual. Night comes. It is pitch dark. The world is swathed in a murky
shroud. At two o'clock loud hammering is heard, the gendarmes are
going from house to house beating upon the doors. "Get up, get up;
in half an hour you must be gone." Dazed with sleep, riven with fear,
grief slowly closing her icy fingers upon their hearts, they stumble
from their beds and throw on a few clothes. They look round the
rooms filled with things nearly every one of which has a history,
things of no intrinsic value, but endeared to them by long
association, and it may be by memory of days when Love and Youth
went hand in hand to the Gates of Romance and they opened wide
at their touch. Things, too, that no money can buy: old armoires
wonderfully carved, old china, old pottery, handed down from father
to son, from mother to child for generations.
What would one choose in such a moment as that?
"You can take nothing but what you can carry." Nothing. The
children clutch at hand and skirt. How can Marie and Germaine and
Jean and Robert walk fifteen or twenty kilomètres to safety?
The prudent snatch at their family papers, thrust a little food into a
bag and go out into the night. Others gather up useless rubbish
because it lies under their hand. The gendarmes are growing
impatient. They round up their human flock as a dog rounds up his
sheep. Shells are beginning to fall here and there. Some one has
been killed—a child. Then a woman. There are cries, a long moan of
pain. But the refugees must hurry on.
"Vîte, vîte, depêchez-vous." They stumble down the roads, going
they know not whither, following the lanes, the woods, even the
fields, for the main road must be kept clear for the army. Hunger,
thirst, the torment of an August day must be endured, exhaustion
must be combated. Death hovers over them. He stoops and touches
now one, now another with his wings, and quietly they slip down
upon the parched and baking earth, for they are old and weary, and
rest is sweet after the long burden of the day.
But even this is not all. One may believe that at first, engulfed by the
instinct of self-preservation, tossed by the whirlwind from one
emotion to another and into the lowest pit of physical pain, the mind
is too confused, too stunned to realise the full significance of all that
is happening.
But once in their new quarters, with the long days stretching out
ahead and the dark night behind, in wretchedness, in bitter poverty,
ah! then Thoughts, Memories, Regrets and Infinite Lonelinesses
throng upon them, and little by little realisation comes and at last
they KNOW.
Know that the broken threads of life can never be taken up again in
the old good way. "On était si heureux là-bas."[5] How often I have
heard that said! "On vivait tout doucement. On n'était pas riche, ma
fois, but we had enough!" Poignant words those, in Refugee-land.
Added to the haunting dread of the future there is always the ghost-
filled dream of the past. Women who have spoken with steady
composure of the loss of thousands of francs, of the ruin of
businesses built up through years of patient industry and hard work,
of farms—rich, productive, well-stocked—- laid waste and bare, have
broken down and sobbed pitifully when speaking of some trivial
intrinsically-valueless possession. How our hearts twine themselves
round these ridiculous little things, what colour, what meaning they
lend to life!
To lose them, ah, yes! that is bad enough; but to know that hands
stained with blood will snatch at them and turn them over, and that
eyes still bestial with lust will appraise their value.... That is where
the sharpest sting lies. The man or woman whose house is effaced
by a shell is happy indeed compared with those who have seen the
Germans come, who have watched the pillage and the looting and
the sacrilege of all they hold most dear.
But the émigré's cup must hold even greater sorrows and anxieties
than these. "C'est un vrai Calvaire que nous souffrons,
Mademoiselle." So they will tell you, and it is heartbreakingly true.
Crucified upon the iron cross of German ambition, they pray daily
that the cup may be taken from them, but the mocking god of War
still holds it to their lips. They must drink it even to the very dregs.
For not always could all the members of a family get away together.
It has been the fate of many to remain behind, to become prisoners
in the shadowed land behind the trenches, at the mercy of a
merciless foe. Between them and their relatives in uninvaded France
no direct communication can be established. An impenetrable
shutter is drawn down between. Only at rare intervals news can
come, and that is when a soldier son or father or other near relative
becomes a prisoner of war in Germany. A French woman in the pays
envahi may write to a prisoner in Germany, and he to her. He may
also write to his friends in the free world beyond. And so it
sometimes happens that news trickles through, but very rarely. The
risk is tremendous, detection heavily punished. Only oblique
reference can be indulged in, and when one has heard nothing for
months, perhaps years, how meagre and unsatisfying that must be.
Do we in England realise what it means? I know I did not before I
met Madame Lassanne, and only very inadequately as I sat in the
kitchen of the Ferme du Popey and listened to her story.
II
She was the daughter of one farmer, the wife of another and
successful one, the richest in their district, so people said. When the
war broke out her husband was mobilised, she with her three
children, a girl of four, a boy of two and a month-old baby, remaining
at the farm with her father and mother. A few days, perhaps a week
or two passed, then danger threatened. Harnessing their horses to
the big farm wagons, she and the old man packed them with literie,
duvets, furniture, food, clothes, everything they could find room for,
and prepared to leave the village. But the gendarmes forbade it. I
suppose the road was needed for military purposes: heavy farm
wagons might delay the passage of the troops. Throughout the
whole of one day they waited. Still the barrier was not withdrawn.
Shells began to rain on the village; first one house, then another
caught fire.
"You may go." The order came at last. The children, with their
grandmother and an aunt of the Lassannes, were placed in the
wagons and the little procession set out; but they were not destined
to go far that day. At the next village the barrier fell again. Believing
that the Germans were following close behind, they held hasty
consultation, as the result of which the old women decided to walk
on with the children, leaving M. Breda and Madame to follow as
soon as the way was clear.
So the horses and wagons were put into a stable, and Madame and
her father sat down to wait. The slow hours ticked away, a shell
screamed overhead, another, then another. Soon they were falling in
torrents on the little street. Houses began to crash down, the stable
caught fire, the four horses and the wagons were burned to a cinder.
Then the house in which the refugees had sheltered was struck.
They escaped by a miracle, crawling on hands and knees. So terrific
was the bombardment they dared not go down the road. A barrage
of shell-fire played over it. With some dozens of others as miserable
as themselves they lay all night in a furrow in a beet-field, Madame
trembling in her father's arms, for shells were falling incessantly on
the field and all around them. At dawn the hurricane ceased, and
they crept away. The road was open now, they were on foot. They
walked fast, then faster, hoping every minute to overtake the
children. The old women surely could not have gone very far. But
mile after mile was conquered and no news of them could be found.
No sentries had seen them, no gendarme had watched them go by.
They asked every one they met on the road, at first hopefully, then,
as fear grew, with clutching hands and fevered eyes. But the answer
was always the same. They had not passed that way. Chance, Fate,
call it what you will, brought Madame and the old man to Bar-le-
Duc, and there, soon after her arrival, she heard that her husband
had been wounded in the earliest of the fighting and was now a
prisoner in Germany. A prisoner and ill. Day after day dragged by.
She found employment on the farm near the town, she made
inquiries, exhausted every channel of information, but no trace of
the children could be found.
And her husband, writing from Germany, demanded news of them!
He did not know that the farm was demolished, and that she was
beggared. He asked for parcels, for comforts. She sent them to him,
by what supreme effort of self-denial only she and the God she
prayed to know. And she wrote him little notes, gay, brave little
notes. She told him all about the children—how fat and how strong
they were.... And Marie—ah, Marie was growing tall—so tall.... And
Roger was able to talk now....
God only knows what it cost her to write those letters; God only
knows with what agony she forced her tears back to their source lest
one, falling on the paper, betray her. She went about her work
white-faced and worn, hungering for the news that never came, and
autumn faded into winter and spring was born and blossomed into
summer, and then, and then only, did the shutter lift and a tiny ray
of light come through.
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