"And do they lack money in the war hospitals?" she cries tremulously; "are the sahibs then so poor?" "Aye, mother; otherwise, why do they bid us collect?" She fumbles desperately in her ragged old bosom, and produces a bent anna or penny piece. "I had been keeping it," she explains apologetically, "to buy my sick grandchild a fairing, but it is not right that strong men should die comfortless and alone without tobacco, sweetmeats, or opium." Surely the widow at the Temple, who cast her last mite into the treasury, earned a smile of divine recognition no more dazzling than that which tonight must have been vouchsafed this poor old "heathen" beggar woman? The narrow streets are suddenly emptied of excited humanity, and the stink of stale incense, burned butter, and sacred cow-dung offends the nostrils of the Night. India - the great demimondaine among countriesnow yawns voluptuously, and, her painted face and garish tawdriness half-hidden by the meroiful darkness, she looks immorally beautiful, as smiling inscrutably she falls asleep. Our motor-car climbs laboriously up the firefly - speckled mountain pass, its acetylene lamps staring warily across abysmal precipices of vertical shadow. Before we reach our Japanese-contrived earthquakeproof cottage on the summit, a beautiful and fearless panther bounds silently across path. His jade-jewelled eyes, milk white fangs, and hot scarlet palate are all vividly lit up by our great dazzling headlights: good luck and The unlovely voice of the good hunting, little bronze prowling night watchman brother-for you the rustling mingles hideously with the night has a thousand coquetdismal wail of the nocturnal tish whispers; but for us jackal, and the malevolent duller-eared mortals "the fun brain-fever bird shrieks mock- of the fair" is over, and ing defiance at the weary, nothing now remains except who, tossing upon the hot heavy-lidded-and boringroof-tops, fain would sleep. The lights are now growing dim, because midnight is a late hour for a people ever astir long before dawn. sleep. GOTT MIT UNS. AN IMPRESSION OF THE CRITICAL DAYS OF MARCH 1918. BY THE RIGHT HON. SIR JOHN SIMON, M.P. On the Wednesday in Holy or satchels crammed with so Week my duty took me, much of their possessions as morning and evening, along they hoped to be able to and across the valley of the transport. Most of them had Somme and through the city overestimated their powers: of Amiens. The Germans had some were already staggerswept past Bapaume and ing under the the load. Here Péronne, and were as far for- was a solitary orone, greyward as Albert and Bray, haired and limping, with batless than twenty miles from tered and bulging portAmiens itself; but rumour was manteau in one hand, and a travelling faster than the reticule containing a pair of enemy, and had already in- boots, a kettle, and a parcel vaded in force the meaner from which a piece of dustquarters of the great town covered bread protruded, in and the villages farther east, the other. Here was a young driving the poor before it. widow, dressed in the ugly Bombs dropped the previous livery of her condition, pushnight in large numbers had ing before her a perambulator convinced even the waverers in which her baby was almost that safety was best sought smothered by utensils in the countryside to the knickknacks snatched up west; and as the staff ear from the dwelling where husapproached the city from band and wife and child had that side, it met an ever been happy together until the increasing multitude of re- ourse of War fell upon them. fugees trudging miserably He lies in an unnamed grave along in little groups, with before Verdun; she was walktheir backs turned on their ing aimlessly on; the child homes. was beating a little drum. The majority of the crowd Then the old men! These, too, for the most part, dressed in black and absurdly overburdened. A surprisingly large proportion of them had found a wheelbarrow on which to load their household goods. A mattress, a strip of carpet, an untidy bundle of clothes, pots and pans tied together with string, and parcels innumerable, made up the usual luggage. Nearly every one seemed to have a dog, Very often a oow followed, tugged along by a rope round her horns. Every few minutes the man with the wheelbarrow stopped, sat to rest on one handle while his wife sat on the other, then then readjusted the strap over his shoulders and started pushing again. One very old man I saw whose barrow, as he wheeled it, served as arm-chair for his invalid wife: she sat there comfortably enough, hands folded in her lap and feet dangling, looking up at him as he toiled along with the wistful, patient gaze of the infirm who must rely on another's strength and kindness. What was she thinking of, I wonder? How often had that old couple moved house together-how many years had she trusted him to lift her? And at last her musings had come to this-How could the vigorous husband of her youth, now that he was so enfeebled and broken, find the force to move them them both? As his body swayed she caught a glimpse, behind his shoulder, of the frail spire of the oathedral orowning the black mass of its nave. What a little way they had come, and with how much exertion! But as they had nowhere to go, perhaps it did not matter much. There was desperation and gloom in his unshaven face, but the poor old wife kept gazing peaceably at him as they trundled slowly by. At intervals a more substantial equipage came down the road-sometimes a huge farm-waggon drawn by three or four horses, with cattle following, and the whole contents of the house stacked within. The old grandmother and the children could be seen perched insecurely on top of the pile, the rest were walking. Sometimes it was an overloaded pony-chaise, or a baker's cart, or even a small motor-car. But as one looked down the slope of the road, it was obvious that these cases of comfortable travel were rare: the mass of the stream was made up of wretched poverty on foot, utterly hopeless and homeless. Inside the town of Amiens every shop was shuttered. No trams were running; no cafés were open. It would have seemed a city of the dead were it not for some household still delayed in its departure, or some slinking, sinister figure waiting perhaps for nightfall to begin marauding. Every one, in and out of town, seemed intent on his own problem. No one was conversing. Returning in the late afternoon along the same road, I was struck by the difference which the lapse of a few hours had made in these pilgrimsany gaiety they ever ever had field amongst them had disappeared. old. Farther on, artillery column was moving "This is a bad business," said I to my driver. "What if it were in our country, sir?" he replied. There were British troops on the road-tramping back in twos and threes to restbillets, and tired enough themselves. But all along the road, and every few yards along it, you saw a soldier wheeling some woman's barrow or perambulator, or carrying a child on his shoulder. Heavy motorlorries, marked "W.D.," and each bearing the emblem of its unit, came rolling by, and out of the hood behind peered in the gathering darkness a cluster of tired faces, young and We stopped our car now and again. "There are three places, Madame, or perhaps four if there are children." I had seen little sign of any group of these people helping another group, but when a middle-aged woman, who seemed to be leading another, was invited, she accepted for her sister who was blind, but said that if we would wait there was a blind man with two children not far behind, and she would continue to walk if we would take them too. So the two blind and the two children elambered in, and were left in the appointed meeting-place in the village five miles on. It then appeared that the two blind people did not know one another. A New Zealander came to the rescue, and promised to stand by them until their friends on on foot arrived. So we left them surrounded by their bundles. "How long did it take, sir, this course?" asked the blind girl. "About ten minutes." She gave a little gasp of pleasure, and you could see that she felt she now had one experience of life that even her sister, who could see, might envy. such When the car turned at the The moon, shining full above bend of the road and mounted the distant cathedral, can from the river valley, the seldom have looked down on groups of refugees had all been an aceumulation of left behind. Many, many were crouching in the undergrowth of the woods behind us, vainly trying to keep warm in spite of the bitter wind. The very young and the very old could hardly survive such a night; all alike were innocent of any part or lot in the crime from which they were suffering. That night the Kaiser telegraphed to his Empress: "My troops continued their glorious advance, driving the enemy before them. God is with us." |