Henry Ruffin

ARRAS, THE WOUNDED TOWN.

While I was in the British lines I visited Arras.

Everyone knows that since February of this year this ancient town has been included in that part of the front which is held by our Allies.

Soldier or traveller, whoever enters the ruins of Arras, is subject to the strictest regulations, which have been imposed for the sake of the security of individuals and the preservation of the general order. The steel helmet is obligatory, as is the gas mask.

Numerous notices instruct us "not to move about except upon the footpaths and hugging the walls. It is absolutely forbidden to use the middle of the roadway." A useful precaution in a town whose outskirts are held by the Germans.

The town is divided into districts. On notice-boards are posted various directions such as, "Rendezvous Place No. 1." For there is no longer any Grande Place or Petit Place or any other spots whose names are known to the people of Arras—only Place 1, 2, 3, and so on.

I have noted, in this connection, the following, as a novel example of organisation and forethought:

"To civilians. You are not required to concern yourselves with military matters. If you talk about such things, you may come under suspicion."

A civilian warned is a civilian armed.

Such was Arras when I saw it in November, 1914, after the first bombardment, and so it was, or nearly so, when I saw it yesterday. And it was the same sorrow that I felt as I passed along those empty streets, where not one house is to be seen that has not received its wound, more or less mortal. The dismal impression may have been strengthened by yesterday's wretched weather.

8. ARRAS.

We often say of some provincial town: "It is a dead-alive place." The phrase should be changed, or else it should be used henceforth only about such towns as Arras, Ypres or Verdun.

For two years not only the Germans but the weather also have been active to help the work of destruction; the Germans with their never-ceasing bombardment, the weather by destroying without hope buildings which might, till lately, have perhaps been saved. Everything rusts and crumbles under the rain, and in many places the wind has finished their work for the guns. Grass sprouts among the ruins; moss grows on stone and timber. The work of Death goes on, slowly but surely.

It is not a little astonishing to meet civilians now and then in Arras. Here and there the white head of some old man or woman appears from a cellar or from behind a bit of wall. There are some hundreds of such French people, who have refused to leave their homes.

They have sent away the "jeunesse," as they say, so that the Boches may have no more children to kill. They, the old folk, propose to stay and look after their ruins.

Yesterday I saw a woman come out of the half-open door of a little shop. She may have been 65 years old. Over the door was the sign, "Washing done here." She was a washerwoman.

I spoke to her.

"My dear lady," I said, "are you not afraid to stay here?"

"Bah, Monsieur!" she replied. "A little sooner, a little later. What does it matter at my age?

"I had a grandson," she went on. "He was just 20 when the Boches came. They killed him close by here in 1914. My girl died of grief. The father is fighting somewhere or other. And so I came back. Here at least I can go now and then to pray for my boy. But not beside his grave. The Boches are there. That's where it is, Monsieur, on the other side of the road."

And she pointed to where the enemy lay, close by.

He is there, close by. You feel him; you hear him. For two years he has held the suburbs of Blangy, Ronville and Saint Sauveur. You hear his firing as if it was beside you. It is all street fighting here. In one place, indeed, there is no more than the width of a little street, four or five yards, between the trenches.

For the moment, however, this sector is quiet.

The chief amusement of the Boches is incendiarism. On regular days and at regular hours of the day it pleases them to light great bonfires in the town. This is how they manage it.

First they throw a few incendiary bombs at the prey which they have singled out. When the fire has been started and the firemen have come running to fight it, the Boches enliven the situation with shells, in the hope, I suppose, of feeding the flames with some human victims.

It is vastly entertaining!

As we came back we made the acquaintance of some very noteworthy British soldiers. They call them Bantams.

The distinguishing feature of these men is their height, which is below the average. There was a certain number of men in England who had been rejected for service in the ranks because of their shortness. As they were very keen to fight, somebody thought of forming them into a special division.

And so the Bantam Division came into being. And these little cocks can fight to the death, like those in whose battles the villages of Northern England used to delight; and, little though they are, they grow, if one may say so, at once to the size of Titans.