A certain lawlessness was abroad in the lonelier areas of the
battlefields. Odds and ends of all the armies, deserters, well hidden
during many months, lived under the earth in holes and cellars and used
strange means to gain a living.
There had been rumours of lonely cars which had been stopped and
robbed--and among the settlers a couple of murders had taken place in a
single district. The mail from Charleville to Montmedy was held up at
last by men in masks armed with revolvers. "We will go out armed!"
exclaimed the drivers in the garage, and polished up their rifles.
After that, when the Americans hi the camps around, hungry upon the
French ration, or drunk upon the mixture of methylated spirits and
whisky sold in subterranean _estaminets_ of ruined villages, picked a
quarrel, there were deaths instead of broken heads and black eyes. "They
must ... they MUST go home!" said the French, turning their easy wrath
upon the homesick Americans.
Somewhere beyond Rheims the wreck of a cindery village sprawled along a
side road. Not a chimney, not a pile of bricks, not a finger of wood or
stone reached three feet high, but in the middle, a little wooden stake
rose above the rubbish, a cross-bar pointing into the ground, and the
words "Vin-Cafe" written in chalk upon it. Fanny, who was thirsty, drew
up her car and climbed across the village to a hole down which the board
pointed.
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