THE YPRES TIMES
229
At Furnes our escort left us and in a flick of the eye we passed from the seething life
of Belgium into a deserted land. The road stretched wide and empty through villages
silent and shuttered without any sign of life. A fortnight earlier I had passed through
such country but this time the feeling was intensified. There were no barricades, no
sentries.
As the armies fell back, the order had gone out that all obstacles must be removed
and defences razed. Northern France lay open to the enemy. We rattled through
Dunkerque, Calais and Boulogne that had so recently seen the debarkation of the British
Expeditionary Army. We made no stop, knocked at no door. Harvests stood perishing
in the fields. Beyond Montreuil we were fired on, a bullet penetrating the hood and
making a clean hole in the cap that Phillippe was wearing. But our assailants remained
invisible and the journey carried on full tilt.
We had gone through Abbeville and were running between fields of dry corn when
a car sprang into view ahead, drawn in alongside the white dusty Route Nationale with
what looked terribly like a machine-gun projected over its rear and several persons
standing about. An attempt to turn would have been suicidal. Speed and surprise
seemed our only friends. The dark grey car stood axle deep in grass to the left of the
road. Though only a few seconds can have passed, her crew were already extending
with trained precision in the grass on either hand, rifles to shoulder. On the back seat
another had swung the gun into action. We were actually on top of them when I
recognised a British Naval officer and stood up in my place gesticulating wildly. We
had run into one of our own patrols. They gave us the cheeriest of welcomes along with
chicken sandwiches and whiskey to fortify the champagne which my travelling companion
considered essential on a journey. In reply to enquiries as to the whereabouts of the
enemy the Lieutenant in charge explained that the enemy happened to be precisely
the fellow he himself was looking for. Point of fact, the beggar blew up the Dieppe-
Paris railway track at two points last night and he's probably lurking close by. As
likely as not you'll see something of him yet." As it turned out, however, we crossed
the damaged railway without incident and before sundown were negotiating the advanced
picquet posts of the fortified place of Rouen. Night had fallen by the time the last hair
pin obstacle had been left behind and we eventually entered the town.
What remained of the journey proved to be merely a matter of speed and patience.
On the road again at dawn we passed through Alencon into Le Mans, there to burst
upon a refilling point in the British Supply Column, with G.S. wagons and lorries, motor
'buses from Clapham, the Elephant and Castle and West Hampstead packed together
in the Place de la Cathedrale and A.S.C. stores piled mountain high. There an ordnance
officer told us about the new base at St. Nazaire and we realised that the war would
continue.
Through Tours and Poietiers and Angouleine, with barriers steadily growing in
frequency and complexity as the danger diminished. The possibility of entering Bordeaux
after dark had become a burning question when an encounter with a French Staff car
settled it. Suicide to try. Monsieur le President knows how to protect himself."
So there we were in open country in the evening sunshine. At this point my friend
very happily recollected a house he knew of not far away and we thereupon coasted
through Libourne and down lanes to pull up eventually in front of a chateau set in woods
and overhanging a river. In the' salon the Duchesse Decazes and her sister-in-law,
Daisy de Broglie, were sewing bandages for the Croix Rouge. There we spent the night,
to reach Bordeaux next morning in time for breakfast.
G.S.P.