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.

HISTORISCHE KRANTEN

The Ypres Times (1921-1936) | 1935 | | pagina 7