On the Edge of the War Zone | Page 2

tree-lined. We trace them by the trees. But the silence over there seems different today. Here and there still thin ribbons of smoke--now rising straight in the air, and now curling in the breeze--say that something is burning, not only in the bombarded towns, but in the woods and plains. But what? No one knows.
One or two of our older men crossed the Marne on a raft on the 10th, the sixth day of the battle. They brought back word that thousands from the battles of the 5th, 6th, and 7th had lain for days un-buried under the hot September sun, but that the fire department was already out there from Paris, and that it would only be a few days when the worst marks of the terrible fight would be removed. But they brought back no news. The few people who had remained hidden in cellars or on isolated farms knew no more than we did, and it was impossible, naturally, to get near to the field ambulance at Neufmortier, which we can see from my lawn.
However, on the 9th--the very day after the French advanced from here--we got news in a very amusing way. We had to take it for what it was worth, or seemed to be. It was just after noon. I was working in the garden on the south side of the house. I had instinctively put the house between me and the smoke of battle when Amélie came running down the hill in a high state of excitement, crying out that the French were "coming back," that there had been a "great victory," and that I was to "come and see."
She was in too much of a hurry to explain or wait for any questions. She simply started across the fields in the direction of the Demi-Lune, where the route nationale from Meaux makes a curve to run down the long hill to Couilly.
I grabbed a sunbonnet, picked up my glasses, and followed her to a point in the field from which I could see the road.
Sure enough--there they were--cuirassiers--the sun glinting on their helmets, riding slowly towards Paris, as gaily as if returning from a fête, with all sorts of trophies hanging to their saddles.
I was content to go no nearer. It was no army returning. It was only a small detachment. Still, I could not help feeling that if any of them were returning in that spirit, while the cannon were still booming, all must be well.
Amélie ran all the way to the Demi-Lune--a little more than a quarter of a mile. I could see her simply flying over the ground. I waited where I was until she came back, crying breathlessly, long before she reached me:
"Oh, madame, what do you think? The regiment which was here yesterday captured a big, big cannon."
That was good news. They really had not looked it.
"And oh, madame," she went on, as she reached me, "the war is over. The Germans have asked for peace," and she sat right down on the ground.
"Peace?" I exclaimed. "Where? Who told you that?"
"A man out there. He heard it from a soldier. They have asked for peace, those Boches, and General Gallieni, he told them to go back to their own frontier, and ask for it there."
"And have they gone, Amélie?" I asked.
She replied quite seriously that they were going, and she was terribly hurt because I laughed, and remarked that I hoped they would not be too long about it.
I had the greatest possible difficulty in making her realize that we were only hearing a very small part of a battle, which, judging by the movements which had preceded it, was possibly extending from here to the vicinity of Verdun, where the Crown Prince was said to be vainly endeavoring to break through, his army acting as a sort of a pivot on which the great advance had swung. I could not help wondering if, as often happens in the game of "snap the whip," von Kluck's right wing had got swung off the line by the very rapidity with which it must have covered that long arc in the great two weeks' offensive.
Amélie, who has an undue confidence in my opinion, was terribly disappointed, quite downcast. Ever since the British landed--she has such faith in the British--she has believed in a short war. Of course I don't know any more than she does. I have to guess, and I'm not a lucky guesser as a rule. I confess to you that even I am absolutely obsessed by the miracle which has turned the invaders back from the walls of Paris. I cannot get over the wonder of it. In the light of the sudden, unexpected pause in that great push I have moments of believing that almost