"Metz is a town," she hazarded.
"Of course!"
"There will be things to eat there?"
"No, very little. It was fed from Germany; now that it is suddenly fed
from Paris the service is disorganised. One train crosses the devastated
land in the day. I hear all this from the brigadier--who has, for that
matter, never been there."
"Then we are going for certain?"
"We are sent for. Yes, we are going. We are to be attached to the
Headquarters Staff. Petain is there. It might even be gay."
Fanny laughed. "Gay!"
"Why not?"
"I was thinking of my one pair of silk stockings."
"You have silk stockings with you!"
"Yes, I ... I am equipped for anything."
There came a morning, as wet and sad as any other, when Stewart and
Fanny, seated in the back of an ambulance, their feet overhanging the
edge, watched the black hut dwindle upon the road, and wondered how any
one had lived there so long.
PART II
LORRAINE
CHAPTER II
METZ
With its back to the woods and hills of Luxembourg, with its face to the
desolation of Northern France, the city of Metz stood at the entry of
Lorraine like the gate to a new world.
The traveller, arriving after long hours of journey through the
battlefields, might sigh with relief, gape with pleasure, then hurry
away down deflagged streets, beneath houses roped with green-leafed
garlands, to eat divinely at Moitrier's restaurant, and join the dancing
in the hall below.
Pages:
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34