Workmen arrived in the
streets. In the early summer mornings tapping could be heard all about
the town. Civilians in new black suits, civilians more or less damaged,
limping or one-eyed, did things that made them happy with a hammer and
a nail. They whistled as they tapped, nailed up shutters that had hung
for four years by one hinge, climbed about the roofs and fixed a tile or
two where a hundred were needed, brought little ladders on borrowed
wheelbarrows and set them against the house-wall. In the house opposite,
in the Rue de Cleves, a man was using his old blue puttees to nail up his
fruit-trees.
All the men worked in new Sunday clothes; they had, as yet, nothing old
to work in. Every day brought more of them to the town, lorries and
horse carts set them down by the "Silver Lion," and they walked along
the street carrying black bags and rolls of carpet, boxes of tools, and
sometimes a well-oiled carbine.
"Yes, we must go home," said the Englishwomen. "It's time to leave the
town."
The "Civils" seemed to drive them out. They knew they were birds of
passage as they walked in the sun in their khaki coats.
The "Civils" were blind to them, never looked at them, hurried on,
longing to grasp the symbolic hammer, to dust, sweep out the German rags
and rubbish, nail talc over the gaping windows, set their homes going,
start their factories in the surrounding mountains, people the houses so
long the mere shelter for passing troops, light the civilian life of the
town, and set it burning after the ashes and dust of war.
Pages:
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239