osition. Can you wonder we are anxious?
We have been buoyed up for weeks by the hope of an Allied
offensive--and instead came this!
The first day's news was bad, so was that of the 24th. I have never
since the war began felt such a vibrant spirit of anxiety about me. To
add to it, just before midnight on the 24th snow began to fall. In the
morning there was more snow on the ground than I had ever seen in
France. It was a foot deep in front of the house, and on the north
side, where it had drifted, it was twice that depth. This was so unusual
that no one seemed to know what to do. Amelie could not get to me.
No one is furnished with foot-gear to walk in snow, except men who
happen to have high galoshes. I looked out of the window, and saw
Pere shovelling away to make a path to the gate, but with an iron
shovel it was a long passage. It was nine o'clock before he got the
gate open, and then Amelie came slipping down. Pere was busy all
day keeping that path open, for the snow continued to fall.
This meant that communications were all stopped. Trains ran slowly
on the main lines, but our little road was blocked. It continued to snow
for two days, and for two days we had no news from the outside
world.
On the morning of the 27th one of our old men went to the Demi-
Lune and watched for a military car coming in from Meaux. After
hours of waiting, one finally appeared. He ran into the road and hailed
it, and as the chauffeur put on his brakes, he called:
"Et Verdun?"
"Elle tient," was the reply, and the auto rushed on.
That was all the news we had in those days.
When communications were opened the news we got was not
consoling. First phase of the battle closed six days ago--with the
Germans in Douaumont, and the fighting still going on--but the spirit
of the French not a jot changed. Here, among the civilians, they say:
"Verdun will never fall," and out at the front, they tell us that the
poilus simply hiss through their clenched teeth, as they fight and fall,
"They shall not pass." And all the time we sit inactive on the hilltop
holding that thought. It's all we can do.
We were livened up a bit last week because the village clown was on
his home leave. He is a lad of twenty-three with a young wife and a
little three-year-old girl, who has learned to talk since "dada" saw her,
and is her father right over--full of fun, good-humor, and laughter.
I have told you that we almost never hear war talk. We did he
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