MAINLY INTRODUCTORY

Relief Work in the War Zone. It did sound exciting. No wonder I volunteered, but, oh dear! great was the plenitude of my ignorance. I vaguely understood that we were to distribute clothes and rabbits, kitchen utensils, guano and other delectable necessaries to a stricken people, but not that we were to wear a uniform and that the uniform would be made "by post." If I had there might never have been a chapter to write nor a tale to tell.

That uniform!—shall I ever forget it? Or the figure I cut when I put it on? Of course, like any sensible female woman, I wanted to have it made by my own tailor and in my own way. Strict adherence to the general scheme, of course, with reasonable modification to suit the individual. But Authority said NO. Only by one man and in one place could that uniform be made. Frankly sceptical at first, I am now a devout believer. For it was certainly unique; perhaps in strict truth I ought to say that several specimens of it were unique. There was one—but this is a modest tale told by a modest woman. Stifle curiosity, and be content with knowing that the less cannot contain the greater. And then let us go hence and ponder upon the sweet reasonableness of man, or at least of one man who, when asked to produce the uniform hats, replied, "But what for, Madam?"

"Well, to try on, of course."

"Try on? Why ever should you want to do that?"

Perhaps you won't believe this? But it is true.

Oh, the agonies of those last days of preparation, and the heartrending impossibility of getting any really useful or practical information about an outfit!

"Wear pyjamas, a mess-tin, and a water-bottle. And of course you must have a sleeping-bag and a bath."

This was at least encouraging. Were we going to sleep À la belle Étoile, a heap of stones our pillow, our roof the sky? You can imagine how I thrilled. But there was the bath. Even in France.... I relinquished the stars with a sigh and realised that Authority was talking learnedly about the uniform, talking swiftly, confidently, assuredly, and as I listened conviction grew that once arrayed in it every difficulty and danger would melt away, and the French nation prostrate itself before my blushing feet in one concentrated desire to pay homage and assist. One danger certainly melted away, but, alas! it took Romance with it. As a moral life-belt that uniform has never been equalled.

And then there was the kit-bag. Ye gods, I KNOW that villainous thing was possessed of the devil. From the day I found it, lying a discouraged heap upon my bedroom floor, to the day when it tucked itself on board ship in direct defiance of my orders and invited the Germans to come and torpedo it—which they promptly did—it never ceased to annoy. It lost its key in Paris, and on arrival at Sermaize declined to allow itself to be opened. It was dumped in my "bedroom" (of which more later), the lock was forced, Sermaize settled itself to slumber. I proceeded to unpack, plunged in a hand and drew forth—a pair of blue serge trousers.

Wild yells for help brought Sermaize to my door. What the owner of the trousers thought when his broken-locked bag was flung back upon him, history does not relate. He had opened what he thought was HIS bag, so possibly he was beyond speech. He was a shy young man and he had never been in France before.

If the thing—the bag, I mean, not the shy young man—had been pretty or artistic one might have forgiven it all its sins. Iniquity should always be beautiful. But that bag was plain, mais d'une laideur effroyable. Just for all the world like a monstrous obscene sausage, green with putrefaction and decay. What I said when I tried to pack is not fit for a young and modest ear. I planted it on its hind legs, seized a pair of boots, tried to immure them in its depths, slipped and fell into it head foremost. It was then the devil chuckled. I heard him. He had been waiting, you see—he knew.

It is some consolation that a certain not-to-be-named friend was not on the hotel steps as I stole forth that torrid June morning. Every imp of the thousand that possess her would have danced with glee. How she would have laughed: for there I was, the not-to-be-tried-on-uniform-hat, a grotesque little inverted pudding-bowl of a thing, perched like a fungoid growth on the top of my head, the uniform itself hanging blanket-like about my shrinking form (it was heavy enough for the arctic regions), a water-bottle which had refused point-blank to go into the kit-bag hanging over one shoulder, and a bulging brown knapsack jutting blasphemously from my back. What a vision! Tartarin of Tarascon climbing the Alps with an ironmonger's shop on his back fades ignominiously in comparison. But then I wasn't just climbing commonplace tourist-haunted Alps. I was going "to the Front." At least, so my family said when making pointed and highly encouraging remarks about my will. That the "Front" in question was twenty miles from a trench was a mere detail. Why go to the War Zone if you don't swagger? I swaggered. Not much, you know—just the faintest Æsthetic suspicion of a swagger, and then.... Then Nemesis fell—fell as I passed a mirror, and saw.... I crawled on all fours into France.

I crawled on all fours into Paris. Think of it, Paris! No wonder French women murmured, "Mais, Mademoiselle, vous Êtes trÈs devouÉe." I am a modest woman (I have mentioned this before, but it bears repetition), but whenever I thought of that uniform I believed them.

If Paris had not been at war she would probably have arrested me at the Douane, and I should have deserved it. Fancy insulting her by wearing such clothes, and on such a night—a clear, purple, perfect summer night, when she lay like a fairy city caught in the silvery nets of the moon. And yet there was a strange, ominous hush over it all. The city lying quiet and, oh, so still! It seemed to be waiting, waiting, a cup from which the wine had been poured upon the red floor of war.

Wandering along the deserted quays, wondering what the morrow would bring.... What a night that was, the sheer exquisite beauty of it! The Conciergerie dark against the sky, the gleaming path of the river, and then the Louvre and the Tuileries all hushed to languorous, passionate beauty in the arms of the moon.

Don't you love Paris, every stone of her? I do. But I was not allowed to stay there. Inexorable Fate sent me the next morning in a taxi and a state of excusable excitement to the Gare de l'Est, where, kit-bag, mess-tin, water-bottle and all, I was immured in the Paris-Nancy express and borne away through a morning of glittering sunshine to Vitry-le-FranÇois, there to be deposited upon the platform and in the arms of a grey-coated and becomingly-expectant young man.