Where the Sabots Clatter Again

the Sabots Clatter Again, by
Katherine Shortall

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Title: Where the Sabots Clatter Again
Author: Katherine Shortall
Release Date: July 29, 2004 [EBook #13048]
Language: English
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[Illustration: Where the Sabots Clatter Again by Katherine Shortall]
[Illustration: Katherine Shortall (autograph), December 1921]

The Radcliffe Unit in France collaborated with the French Red Cross
in its work of reconstruction after the Armistice. It was as a member of
this unit and as chauffeuse in the devastated regions that the writer
received the impressions set forth in these sketches.

Where the Sabots Clatter Again
by Katherine Shortall
[Illustration: street scene]
Ralph Fletcher Seymour Publisher 410 S. Michigan Avenue Chicago
PUBLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE RADCLIFFE COLLEGE
ENDOWMENT FUND IN AN EDITION LIMITED TO 150 COPIES
SECOND EDITION OF 150 COPIES
1921

WHERE THE SABOTS CLATTER AGAIN.

THE BRIDE OF NOYON.
A returning flush upon the plain. Streaks of color across a mangled
landscape: the gentle concealment of shell hole and trench. This is what
one saw, even in the summer of 1919. For the sap was running, and a
new invasion was occurring. Legions of tender blades pushed over the
haggard No Man's Land, while reckless poppies scattered through the
ranks of green, to be followed by the shyer starry sisters in blue and
white. Irrepressibly these floral throngs advanced over the shell torn
spaces, crowding, mingling and bending together in a rainbow riot
beneath the winds that blew them. They were the vanguard.

* * * * *
In the midst of the reviving fields lay Noyon: Noyon, that gem of the
Oise, whose delicate outline of spires and soft tinted roofs had graced
the wide valley for centuries. Today the little city lay blanched and
shapeless between the hills, as all towns were left that stood in the path
of the armies. The cathedral alone reared its battered bulk in the midst;
a resisting pile, its two grim and blunted towers frowning into the sky.
Nobly Gothic through all the shattering, the great church rose out of the
wreckage, with flying buttresses still outspread like brooding wings to
the dead houses that had sunk about her.
But Noyon was not dead. We of the Red Cross knew that. We knew
that in cellars and nooks of this labyrinth of ruin already hundreds of
hearts were beating. On this calm September morning the newly
cleared streets resounded with the healthful music of hammer and saw,
and cartwheels rattled over the cobblestones, while workmen called to
each other in resonant voices. Pregnant sounds, these, the significance
of which we could estimate. For we had seen Noyon in the early
months of the armistice: tangled and monstrous in her attitude of falling,
and silent with the bleeding silence of desertion. Then, one memorable
day, the stillness had been broken by the first clatter of sabots--that
wooden noise, measured, unmistakable, approaching. Two pairs of
sabots and a long road. Two broad backs bent under bulging loads; an
infant's wail; a knock at the Red Cross Door--but that was nearly eight
months before.
The Poste de Secours was closed for the first time since Madame de
Vigny and her three young infirmières had come to Noyon. Two
women stood without, one plump and bareheaded, the other aged and
bent, with a calico handkerchief tied over her hair. They stared at the
printed card tacked upon the entrance of the large patched-up house
that served as Headquarters for the French Red Cross.
"Tiens! c'est fermé," exclaimed Madame Talon, shaking the rough
board door with all her meagre weight, "and I have walked eight
kilometers to get a jupon, and with rheumatism, too."

"Haven't you heard the news?" asked her companion with city-bred
scorn.
"Ah? What news?" The crisp old face crinkled with anticipation.
"Why, Mademoiselle Gaston is to be married today."
"Tiens, tiens! est-ce possible? What happiness for that good girl!" and
Madame Talon, forgetful of the loss of her jupon, smiled a wrinkled
smile till her nose nearly touched her chin, and her eyes receding into
well worn little puckers, became two snapping black points.
"Is it really so? And the bridegroom--who is he?"
There followed that vivacious exchange of questions and answers and
speculations which accompanies the announcement of a marriage the
world over.
Mademoiselle Gaston was the daughter of an