Inspector in Paris for the FraternitÉ Americaine

[Since this article was written Dunkirk has faced a new peril from the blow struck in her direction by the powerful German armies around Ypres, to the southeast; but the author's vivid and sympathetic description of the daily life of the little city remains as true as in the Winter days when it was penned for Current History Magazine.

In the track of the wind stands the plucky little City of Dunkirk, still flapping the flags of courage and constancy in the face of an increasingly rabid enemy. It is the only city of France that is subjected to bombardment from land and sea and sky.

What is the every-day life in a town near enough to the front to be never free from the menace of a triple bombardment? That is what I went to find out, traveling by way of Calais in stygian darkness, for the train was without lights to avoid the danger of bombs.

A little before dawn the train drew into the black station of Dunkirk, through whose roofing the sky showed dimly in spots where air-raid shells had spattered. The silent crowd jostled through the darkness, the soldiers separating themselves from it at the military exit. Inside, only a ray from a dark lantern, held by the officer who scanned the passports one by one, made a spot of light among the overlapping shadows. The wind sighed through the draughty place, the snow entered freely, the floor was sloppy with mud. Outside in the empty square not a vehicle, not a porter, in sight. The street cars had stopped running.

My hotel lay beyond the centre of the town. In the driving storm, through unknown streets, I knew it would be foolish to attempt to find it. An officer passed and to him I appealed. "To the right, in the middle of the square," he said, with outstretched arm, "is the Lion de Flandre. If they can't put you up there, come back and we will see."

Not a point of light indicated the identity of the Lion de Flandre. On nearer approach all the houses appeared boarded up, as though long since abandoned. In the middle of the square was an oblong hump, like the roofed-over foundation of a demolished building. I learned later that this was a public refuge built for the inhabitants of the section.

HOTEL IN DANGER ZONE

As I turned irresolutely in the direction of the dark façades, the silhouette of a man in casque and puttees passed across the snow. A crack of light gleamed from a hidden doorway, and through it he disappeared. I followed hard after him and stepped into a lighted room full of smoke and soldiers, a man's place, with sand-strewn floor and bottles conspicuously in evidence. Nevertheless, the comfortable woman behind the bar received me without surprise. A room she could give me, but as for food, that was a different matter. The boches had the habit of coming at about dinner time, and it had become a nuisance to abandon the untasted meal every night and to dive into the cave—it really had! So she had given up trying to have anything hot at night and let the fires go out at 6. But if I would like a sandwich and some beer—?

After the long, starved journey this was not alluring.

"Not a cup of tea with the sandwich?" I pleaded. A collaborator was called, a plump, dark woman, and after a hurried conference I was asked to wait in the room behind the cafÉ. Nothing could be more dismal than this compartment. It was high for its floor space, like a deep box with a lid, and had no outside windows, being wedged between the cafÉ and the kitchen. The ornate glass divisions were gone or clinging in fragments, the walls pierced in many places, the plaster down. A tiny point of gas burned high above the table.

They were very good to me, these warbound women, one of whom, I discovered, had an ulcerated tooth, the other two little boys captive in Belgium.

FIRST NIGHT'S EXPERIENCES

In a short time a small bit of steak and a potato cut in quarters and fried were placed before me, and simultaneously a large black dog with wistful eyes but determined manner stationed himself at my side. The steak was followed by a chilly little salad, bread and cheese, and more butter than I had seen for many a month in Paris—and a cup of tea which, for its grateful warmth, I drank without challenge.

Snatches of honest English, mingled with French, filtered in from the cafÉ, where the fire was not quite extinct and where beer was served until 9 o'clock. Before that hour I was fumbling upstairs guided by the patronne, who carried a two-inch stub of candle between her fingers. "This is the way to the cave," she explained, pointing to a doorway under the stairs. "In case of an alarm you have only to rush down there. There will be a light burning at the entrance." Passing through the hallway she indicated the spot where a man had recently been killed. "If he had stayed where he was, at the table where you have just eaten, Madame, he would have been all right, but as he ran to the refuge a bomb exploded outside in the square, burst open the front door, traversed the length of the corridor, passed through the kitchen wall and into the garden beyond. But you can rest assured that nothing will happen tonight, Madame," continued the patronne, who seemed as familiar with the habits of Gothas as a farmer's wife is with those of fowls—"Not in this wind, oh, no!"

After that first night I groped my way alone to bed, the candle stub having come to an end, feeling my way along the pitch dark passageways to the room with the linoleum mat, the room which had not known fire for three years and a half, whose paneless windows were boarded up, the one room in the house which had not lost a ceiling or floor or whose walls were not clipped through with shells. The regular inmates of the hotel slept nightly in the cellar. It saved time and was warmer.

Notwithstanding the reassurances of the patronne I confess to going to bed with half my clothes on. But under the wing of the storm Dunkirk slept tranquilly for three successive nights. Of course, there was always the soft bum-bum of the cannon on the northern horizon, strange tremors shook the bed, and the night was full of weird sounds, the rattling skeletons of dead houses.

BRAVE LITTLE DUNKIRK

Like an arm held up to protect the face, the coast between Calais and Dunkirk bears the brunt of storm from the North Sea. A dark sea, sombre and brooding, girdled by lowering clouds; on the snow-driven plain a few detached towers, etched as though in sepia against the gray sky and rising abruptly above the low line of roof—this is Dunkirk on a Winter's day. A homely little town with a deep fringe of docks and waterways on its seaward side and a girdle of fortifications built by Vauban encircling the rest. The whole set in a ring of dark water which fills the moat. It is thoroughly Flemish in character, and, seen from the water, must resemble a city on a delft tile. The moral attitude of the town has always been one of robust activity. Even its patron saints are among the most industrious and enterprising in the calendar—notably St. Eloi, who brought Christianity to the Dunkerquois and to whom the original Dunkirk (church on the dunes) was dedicated.

All the history of the town is tinged with a vigor which has blown in to it from the sea. Here the crusading ships of Baldwin of Flanders, and later those of St. Louis of France, were fitted out. After the momentous marriage of Marie of Burgundy had thrown the city for a time under the dominion of Spain it played a brilliant part in the game of the period—piracy.

The quaint tower on the quay—called Lugenhaer, the Liar—was used at that epoch to give false signals to ships at sea. But it dates from a much earlier period, and was one of twenty-eight towers with which Baldwin of Flanders bound together the wall with which he surrounded the city. The Liar and the belfry of the recently ruined Cathedral of St. Eloi were the only interesting architectural bits left in Dunkirk. The thirteenth century tower, dark and strong at its base, rises to a great height, flowering into restrained tracery at the top and shepherding under its shadow the heart of the town, which lies below it. This is the lodestone. Toward it I turned after leaving the battered hotel that first morning at Dunkirk.

CITY OF SHATTERED HOMES

From the snowy Place de la Gare the street cars started regularly in divergent directions, but oh, the gloom of those dead streets which they passed! Wide streets, winding between rows of low houses, plain and solid, but built on a neighborly plan. Their desolation is the more marked because of this innate, homelike quality. In almost all of them the window and door spaces were boarded up, and the first impression was rather that of a deserted city than of a demolished one. But a second glance showed that destruction had come from the sky, tearing away the roof, annihilating the interior, and rendering the house uninhabitable, perhaps irreparable, though the walls might to a certain extent be left standing. Often the havoc was more apparent, exposing the bare skeleton of a home and the shattered remnants of household comforts in shocking nudity.

The freakishness of destruction by bombardment is proverbial. It is this which creates in the timid an intense anxiety and in the hardy the willingness to take a chance. The 8-year-old son of the chief surgeon at the Military Hospital, stretching out his hand during a bombardment, said calmly, "Of course it may fall on that, but there is plenty of room on each side." And this rather sums up the spirit of the Dunkerquois who remain.

Of a population of 40,000, about 5,000 are left, and most of these have become modern cave men. To be thoroughly up to date one must live in a "casemate." In every quarter of the town posters announce the locality of these public refuges. They are either cellars reinforced overhead, or dugouts in the public squares, strongly roofed with corrugated iron, which is covered with wood and sandbags. Often there is extra trench work inside, always a tight little stove with a pipe running the length of the cave, plank benches along the sides, and usually beds with army blankets.

DODGING THE BOMBS

Into these refuges the Dunkerquois has learned to precipitate himself with extraordinary celerity. He considers a minute and a half sufficient time in which to gain safety, no matter where he may be when the "alerte" is given. When there is a bombardment from the land side the alarm is sounded as the obus[**? *french for shell] leaves the gun at the front. It takes 90 seconds for its flight to Dunkirk. So accurately is this calculated that casualties seldom result from a land bombardment. The inhabitants scuttle into safety, and the damage is limited to bricks and mortar. The peppering from sea is also taken lightly. The firing is very rapid, but it is soon over, and the shots are comparatively small, passing clean through the walls without shattering them. It is the air raids which are dreaded, and these are increasingly frequent and destructive. Often the chugging of the motors can be heard in the thick darkness for a quarter of an hour or more before there is an explosion, and this is a nerve-racking experience.

A striking feature of the streets in Dunkirk is the incumbrance of the sidewalks by boxes filled with stones and sandbags. These cover the windows and approaches to the cellars and serve as shock absorbers against flying pieces of shell.

And why does any one stay in so precarious an outpost on the verge of the fighting line? Some perhaps because to set forth alone or with a brood of children into an unknown world already trampled by countless refugees seems an equally perilous outlook. Others because their maintenance still depends upon the docks and shipyards, though the 6,000 longshoremen usually employed about the piers have disappeared. Then there are those whose interests are bound up in a shop or other investment in the town, and business is brisk in Dunkirk, owing to the presence of two armies. A few there are who are not only of Dunkirk but who are Dunkirk itself, upon whose presence depends the prosperity of the town and its usefulness to the State.

STILL A LIVELY PORT

For if the picturesque landmarks have disappeared, Dunkirk has by no means lost its sea prestige. It is the third port of France, and though its position is singularly exposed it is largely through its harbor that the British Army has been revictualed since the beginning of the war. This renders still more remarkable the fact that not one ship has been lost between Dunkirk and the English port of clearing. One does not appreciate at first glance all that this implies. It means for one thing that some one must sit tight at Dunkirk. Traffic by sea has gone on uninterruptedly and until recently has been quite that of normal times. Now, owing to the recent restrictions on imports and exports, it is greatly reduced, though still regular. The sailings and dockings take place on schedule time.

One of those largely responsible for the order of the port is the Consular Agent of the United States, M. Morel, also President of the Chamber of Commerce of Dunkirk. His house, a mere skeleton, has long since been abandoned for the superior comforts and safety of the cellar. Attached to the jamb of the almost equally ruined office building his small sign in black and gold makes a brave showing. The front of the building had been largely torn away and with it a part of the roof. Looking up one saw a dizzy arrangement of laths and rafters, suggestive of the underside of a heap of jackstraws. But the staircase was firm and led to a small back room, where a bright fire burned and where business was transacted as usual; not only the business of the port, for while I was there an American Red Cross doctor and a bevy of nurses came in to have their passports renewed.

Another home which I had the privilege of entering, that of Commandant Boultheel, had been more fortunate, for it stood as yet untouched by disaster. Here in an atmosphere of warm charm, a serene and gracious hostess dispensed hospitality to her friends. Pewter and old china on the walls and a great fire of logs dispelled the depression of the outside world. Around the table were men of war and men of the world, who represented the finest qualities of the French. Among them was a valiant PrÉfet du Nord, who had spent ten months as hostage in a German prison, using his time to study English and reread Horace. In fact, I felt, as I had on the train, that the further I got from Paris the nearer I came to the heart of France.

A glimpse of "cave life" I had in the pharmacie maintained by the Sisters of the SacrÉ Coeur in the basement of the HÔtel de Ville, where it had been temporarily installed by the city, its own quarters being untenable. This was a large space lighted by electricity and crowded with bottles and jars, bundles of herbs and bandages, and made cheerful by the bright faces of the sisters. In another portion of the cellar they sleep, living entirely underground.

Families are large in Dunkirk, and children troop unconcernedly to and fro between home and school. To them the nightly flight to the casemate is no longer a wild adventure.

BUSINESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES

The business part of the town has not the sad aspect of the residence streets, for it is full of life. The decrepit shops, half boarded up, many of them resembling a face with a bandage over one eye, are doing a lively business. With the demands of a large floating population of two armies, Dunkirk is not suffering commercially. Department stores, book shops, shoe stores, provision shops of all kinds, make the most of a short day. Oranges, figs, dates, nuts, and conserved food of all kinds are much in evidence, also warm clothing, blankets, boots, and novels. The restaurant of the HÔtel Chapeau Rouge was filled with French and English officers, and an excellent meal was served much as it would be in Paris. At 4:30 everything is closed. Lights are extinguished, windows and doors are sealed with their householders behind them, unless the latter are among those who seek the comparative safety of the suburbs at nightfall. For though the entire surrounding country is subject to bombardment, the town is the centre of attack. In the twilight of the unlighted streets scarce a footfall is heard. Only the occasional rumble of a heavy cannon shakes the air. Behind the wall of darkness pulses a full life undismayed by the terrors of the approaching night or the possibilities of the tomorrow.

A STAG AT BAY

In the heart of the forest I once saw a stag leading his herd to the shelter of a rock in the rush of an oncoming storm. Having urged them into crouching positions around him, he turned and with a simple gesture lifted his head to the storm. There was that in his attitude which compelled reverence. One mentally saluted, though one might think "poor, silly beast, in what way could he mitigate the lash of the tempest?" But instinctively he had obeyed the highest for which he had been created, the protection of the weak. And his calm presence caught away all panic from those around him. Often while in Dunkirk this scene came back to me, recalled by the simple matter-of-courseness with which these brave men and equally brave women stayed on because it was the place for them to be.

At the Military Hospital of Rosendael, with the exception of the intrepid surgeon and the almoner, it is the women who hold the position. Originally the city hospital, it was taken over by the army at the beginning of the war. An immense building with modern equipment and a capacity for 700 patients, it has been necessary of late to evacuate many of the sections because of the increasing frequency of the bombardments. The hospital has been struck many times and one ward completely destroyed. As it happened there were no soldiers in that section, it being used as a maternity hospital for the city. Several women and little children were killed and also the sister in charge, Sister St. Etienne, so dear to her co-workers that she is never spoken of without tears. She had just finished her rounds for the night when the alarm came. Her one thought was to save her ward from panic. A bomb crashing through the roof hurled a beam across the sister, killing her instantly and wrecking the entire wing.

"FOR ALL AMERICAN WOMEN"

In spite of this tragedy and of recurring attacks, the other sisters and the head nurse, Mlle. Guyot, have held their posts with quiet heroism and have never lost an hour's duty. The patients now are mostly convalescent, because fresh cases are no longer brought there.

The supplies of shirts, pajamas, and bandages sent from America were gratefully commented upon by Mlle. Guyot, and I was touched by similar expressions from the men. One poor aviator, terribly burned, but recovering, put up a bandaged hand and saluted me "for all American women." Another poilu wove for me a table mat of red, white, and blue cord. All were fervent in their good wishes.

Everywhere warmth and order prevailed, from the wards where the bandaged soldiers sat about with their pipes and their knitting to the big bakery where the fragrant brown bread is baked and to the kitchens with their caldrons of broth and crisp roasts of meat.

Dry, well ventilated "abris" or bomb shelters have been built in connection with each section of the hospital. The surgeon, who sleeps in a cellar near the centre, is the first to assist his patients to shelter in case of an alarm. There, underground, long games of cards are played on the brink of the unknown. This is not callousness, but is done with deliberate intent by the clever surgeon, (a refugee from Lille,) knowing that by this means his men may be saved a nervous strain which might prove fatal.

Mlle. Guyot, who has been at the hospital since the beginning of the war, knows as well as any one what the city has endured. It was she who said to me:

"I shall never forget that Dunkirk has borne the weight of the war from the first day; that she has seen the exodus of the Belgian population, to whom she has given refuge as well as to the people of the Department du Nord; that she has known the passing of innumerable armies going and coming from the Yser; that in October, 1914, she began to be bombarded, having at the same time to fulfill the immense duty of bringing in and caring for the wounded from that immortal battlefield; and through it all I have seen Dunkirk living and working and saving with a smile!"

The military position of Dunkirk is sometimes confusing because it has been alternately on the French and English fronts. The English are now retiring, but sentinels of three nationalities still guard the city gates; English Tommy and French poilu stand with their arms across each other's shoulders, the Belgian stands apart.

On the sands of Malo, which is but a prolongation of Dunkirk, with a sweeping beach toward the North Sea, strange men from Tonquin were digging trenches—dark men branded by the sun and the mark of the East, with warm dabs of color on their high cheekbones, and small opaque eyes under rising brows. The uniform of the French Colonial is often a medley. He looks as though he had begun "dressing up" like children in the attic, and as though his mind had fallen short of his expectations. Out on those bleak sands his touches of rich blue, crimson, and green had almost the fervor of stained glass set against the dark and sinister sea. To the north the Belgian coast cut the background with a livid streak of sand.

In spite of the moving figures, the loneliness was as of the ends of the earth. The silence was accentuated rather than broken by the purr of the cannon and the mewing of a stray gull slapped sidewise by the wind. But it is thus that I like to think of Dunkirk—scourged by the wind, blotted out by the storm, knowing that for the time being her stout hearts are safe.

As the sea has been the life of Dunkirk in the past, so it will be its resurrection. The city cannot be struck a deathblow from the land side as has many another less favorably situated. But what a unique protÉgÉ for some god-mothering American city to help re-establish through her sympathy and aid!

Is it any wonder that France has just included in the arms of Dunkirk the following legend in addition to the one gained by the naval battle of 1793: "Ville heroique, sert d'exemple À toute la nation"?