Kings, Queens, and Pawns | Page 8

were at work on the line that stretched along the
stone flooring, carrying the wounded to ambulances, but the line
seemed hardly to shrink. Always the workers inside the train brought

another stretcher and yet another. The rumble of the trucks had ceased.
It was very cold. I could not look any longer.
It took three hours to go the twenty miles to Calais, from six o'clock to
nine. I wrapped myself in my fur coat. Two men in my compartment
slept comfortably. One clutched a lighted cigarette. It burned down
close to his fingers. It was fascinating to watch. But just when it should
have provided a little excitement he wakened. It was disappointing.
We drifted into conversation, the gentleman of the cigarette and I. He
was an Englishman from a London newspaper. He was counting on his
luck to get him into Calais and his wit to get him out. He told me his
name. Just before I left France I heard of a highly philanthropic and
talented gentleman of the same name who was unselfishly going
through the hospitals as near the front as he could, giving a
moving-picture entertainment to the convalescent soldiers. I wish him
luck; he deserves it. And I am sure he is giving a good entertainment.
His wit had got him out of Calais!
Calais at last, and the prospect of food. Still greater comfort, here my
little card became operative. I was no longer a refugee, fleeing and
hiding from the stern eyes of Lord Kitchener and the British War
Office. I had come into my own, even to supper.
I saw no English troops that night. The Calais station was filled with
French soldiers. The first impression, after the trim English uniform,
was not particularly good. They looked cold, dirty, unutterably weary.
Later, along the French front, I revised my early judgment. But I have
never reconciled myself to the French uniform, with its rather slovenly
cut, or to the tendency of the French private soldier to allow his beard
to grow. It seems a pity that both French and Belgians, magnificent
fighters that they are, are permitted this slackness in appearance. There
are no smarter officers anywhere than the French and Belgian officers,
but the appearance of their troops en masse is not imposing.
Later on, also, a close inspection of the old French uniform revealed it
as made of lighter cloth than the English, less durable, assuredly less
warm. The new grey-blue uniform is much heavier, but its colour is

questionable. It should be almost invisible in the early morning mists,
but against the green of spring and summer, or under the magnesium
flares--called by the English "starlights"--with which the Germans
illuminate the trenches of the Allies during the night, it appeared to me
that it would be most conspicuous.
I have before me on my writing table a German fatigue cap. Under the
glare of my electric lamp it fades, loses colour and silhouette, is
eclipsed. I have tried it in sunlight against grass. It does the same thing.
A piece of the same efficient management that has distributed white
smocks and helmet covers among the German troops fighting in the
rigours of Poland, to render them invisible against the snow!
Calais then, with food to get and an address to find. For Doctor Depage
had kindly arranged a haven for me. Food, of a sort, I got at last. The
hotel dining room was full of officers. Near me sat fourteen members
of the aviation corps, whose black leather coats bore, either on left
breast or left sleeve, the outspread wings of the flying division. There
were fifty people, perhaps, and two waiters, one a pale and weary boy.
The food was bad, but the crisp French bread was delicious. Perhaps
nowhere in the world is the bread average higher than in France--just as
in America, where fancy breads are at their best, the ordinary wheat
loaf is, taking the average, exceedingly poor.
Calais was entirely dark. The Zeppelin attack, which took place four or
five weeks later, was anticipated, and on the night of my arrival there
was a general feeling that the birthday of the German Emperor the next
day would produce something spectacular in the way of an air raid.
That explained, possibly, the presence so far from the front--fifty miles
from the nearest point--of so many flying men.
As my French conversational powers are limited, I had some difficulty
in securing a vehicle. This was explained later by the discovery the next
day that no one is allowed on the streets of Calais after ten o'clock.
Nevertheless I secured a hack, and rode blithely and unconsciously to
the house where I was to spend the night. I have lost the address of that
house.