The Beauty and the Sorrow (73 page)

The decision to leave was in a sense inevitable. She had no work and the situation in Russia and in Moscow was becoming untenable, with famine, lawlessness and imminent civil war. Even then it had not been an easy decision to reach, and before making it she was overwhelmed by a kind of depression. One of her friends came across her one day sitting and weeping, and she could not explain why, not even to herself, since there was no simple answer. She leafed through her journal entries and relived various unpleasant scenes with a shudder or with disgust, asking herself: “Was it
I
—really
I
—who saw that? Was it
I
—really
I
—who did that?” And she thought of all the dead bodies she had seen, right from the very first, little Vasiliy, the groom in Moscow who was not even a
real victim of the war since he died of a brain tumour. She asked herself, “Will they be remembered? But who could remember all those many thousands and thousands?” When she said goodbye to her friends and host family in Moscow twenty-seven days ago she had felt clumsy and cold and words had been insufficient to express her emotions.

They leave the railway carriage and make their way into the town. She can see a polyglot mixture of nationalities and uniforms on the streets. There are Chinese and Mongolians, Tartars and Hindus, Russians (naturally), British, Romanians and Americans, French, Italians, Belgians and Japanese. (Two of the large warships down in the harbour are theirs.) The foreign intervention has started and what began as an effort to keep Russia in the war is on the way to becoming a stand against the Bolsheviks in Moscow. The markets and the shops are well stocked. It is even possible to buy butter. Once she gets to the consulate she meets a helpful official who passes over £20 sent by her brother in England. Sea transport out of Vladivostock can also be expected, though he is unable to say when.

She really enjoys being able to eat white bread and strawberry jam again.

That is the day Harvey Cushing writes in his journal:

Unseasonably cold, with a high wind blowing from the north. An occasional plane struggles against it, but not many. This standing by with nothing to do but await orders is the very devil. It affects everyone alike, for we know that somewhere there is overwhelming work under which surgical teams are struggling.

THURSDAY
, 18
APRIL
1918
Michel Corday overhears some card players in Paris

Yet another overcast day. The anxiety has eased a little, but only a little. The great German offensive has been going on for almost a month, but the push south towards Paris really does seem to have stopped and there has been a new series of attacks up in the north instead, in Flanders. At
the same time, however, the Germans have started moving on the Oise and the Meuse.

The great topic of conversation in Paris is, of course, the giant cannon. Since 23 March the French capital has come under fire almost daily from some sort of special artillery piece, which can hurl its projectiles for eighty miles from a well-camouflaged position behind the German lines—a distance so sensational that the experts initially doubted its veracity.
ⁱ
The random bombardment (now here, now there, at a rate of two or so an hour), in combination with news of the rapid German advance initially caused something close to panic in the French capital.

Corday writes in his journal that the atmosphere reminded him for a while of the situation in August 1914. Every conversation began with the same anxious question: “Have you heard anything?” Stations were overflowing with people trying to find room on a train and the queues stretched right out into the streets. The banks were crowded with depositors seeking to withdraw their money for fear that it would all be lost if the Germans marched in. About a million people have left Paris by this time, seeking refuge in towns such as Orléans, the population of which has tripled at a stroke. Trade has diminished noticeably—firms dealing in luxury goods have been particularly hard hit and been forced to lay workers off.

Corday has noticed that most of those leaving the city do not want to appear cowardly and put forward a string of excuses to justify their flight. There is a joke doing the rounds: “No,
we
aren’t leaving for the same reasons as all the rest. We are leaving because we are frightened.” He feels he can sense a great deal of hypocrisy, not just in the furtive duplicity of motives for fleeing but also with regard to the type of people who are running away. According to Corday, many of those now leaving Paris have previously been vocal supporters of the war, exhorting others to “Fight to the bitter end!” Now that they are finally in real danger
themselves they have immediately taken to their heels. (Corday also has the impression that it is the upper and middle classes who make up the bulk of the evacuees. They have the necessary resources to get out and the contacts that make it easier to do so.)

It is the very uncertainty of the situation that nourishes the fear. What is actually happening? Strict censorship—even of letters and postcards—increases the sense of living in a no-man’s-land between the fixed and the fluid, a twilight zone in which it is no longer possible to rely on what the press claims or the official communiqués state. In many ways these two media have merged anyway, and nowadays it is forbidden to claim in print anything that contradicts what is stated in a military announcement. Even what is said face to face may be punishable, and anyone claiming in conversation that the Germans are closer than the authorities maintain, or that enemy resources are probably greater than is officially admitted, may be charged with “alarmism.” It is forbidden, for example, to discuss where the shells of the giant cannon landed or what damage they caused—to do so can lead to fourteen days in gaol.
^j
Prosecutions usually result from intelligence provided by informers. A regiment of civilian volunteers has been set up to eavesdrop on conversations on the street and call the police if they hear anything unacceptable. Telephone conversations, too, are listened in to. Today Corday notes some of the warnings recently issued in his ministry:

On such and such a day at such and such an hour someone from the office telephoned the prefect in Amiens and the latter answered that the situation was critical and that the British, as usual, were in flight. An utterly reprehensible conversation.

Or:

Extension such and such at your office rang a lady, number such and such, and asked what the situation was like. Inappropriate expressions were used during the conversation and this must not happen again.

Since the bombardment of Paris began Corday has noticed yet again how strong people’s need for normality is—and how double-edged their talent can be when it comes to constructing everyday normality even in extreme conditions.

When the shells begin to fall, the police raise the alarm all over Paris by going round blowing their whistles and beating on small drums. This leads to more ridicule than disquiet (blowing a whistle and beating a drum simultaneously is more difficult than might be imagined) and street urchins, housewives and passing soldiers tend to laugh at them. Then the distant explosions come and Corday, who had never heard shells exploding before, describes the sound as “hollow, hard and echoing.” He reports that when a shell landed one morning those nearby calmly continued beating their mats and that the sound of the mats being beaten drowned out the echo of the explosion. One of his friends did not even hear the explosion because the Algerians who have taken over the city’s refuse collection were making so much noise emptying the rubbish bins.

Corday is horrified by the reactions: “Fifty metres away from the disaster people carry on buying and selling, making love and working, eating and drinking.” A shell landed on the church in the Place Saint-Gervais during the Good Friday Mass. The church was full, since prayers were being offered for the many men who had fallen in the hard fighting of recent weeks. Seventy-five people were killed when the church roof collapsed.
^k
On this occasion Corday was in the Métro and when he came up to street level at the Madeleine station a woman he did not know told him what had just happened. “Several young men sitting on a balustrade by the station entrance carried on swapping loud jokes.”

Corday is sitting in a café today. There are four men at one table, playing cards and commenting on the bombardment of the last few days:

I choose clubs … fourteen were killed … Trumps! … and forty wounded … Hearts! … women, too … Trumps! Trumps and one of spades!

SUNDAY
, 19
MAY
1918
Willy Coppens shoots down his fifth observation balloon

The weather is beautiful. This morning Willy Coppens is flying towards Houthulst, where he knows there is a German observation balloon and he is planning to shoot it down. If he succeeds it will be his fifth kill, and five kills is the Belgian air force requirement for a pilot to be called a flying ace. There is a small flight of aircraft from his squadron keeping him company to protect him from German fighters. (An attack on a balloon is visible from a great distance; the sky will quickly fill with shell-bursts from anti-aircraft batteries and enemy aircraft will immediately rush to the scene to protect the balloon.)

They reach the front line at Diksmuide, where they see a flight of enemy aircraft heading south. Coppens and his escort turn towards them but the German aircraft seem to have no interest in a fight and just continue on their way. He sees the balloon. Puffs of smoke from the anti-aircraft batteries begin to blossom in the sky.

At 9:45 Coppens dives at the balloon and shoots it down in flames.

As soon as he lands he is immediately surrounded by the other pilots wanting to congratulate him. Not only the pilots: all the jubilation attracts some of the squadron’s many dogs, among them the fox terrier called Biquet, the Alsatian called Malines and Topsy the cocker spaniel. Later that day Coppens and another of the pilots in his squadron are summoned to the headquarters in Houthem, where the commander of the Belgian air force officially congratulates him on having achieved the status of air ace. When Coppens returns he joins another patrol over the front lines at about half past six.

That evening his name is mentioned in the official Belgian press communiqué for the first time. Coppens is very proud and excited since he knows that the statement will not only be posted everywhere behind the front lines but will also be published in the foreign and the domestic press. He goes to De Panne and mingles with the people standing studying the latest communiqué and he tells of the “childish pleasure” he felt
on hearing the soldiers reading it aloud and coming to his name
—his name!
“But that was in the beginning, before I got blasé and before I became well known.”

The same day Richard Stumpf sees a warship being decorated for Whitsuntide. He notes in his journal:

The little vessel
Germania
, which belongs to the munitions depot, anchored close to us. Her highest masthead was decorated with a large bundle of birch cuttings. Fresh green branches had also been tied along her rails and superstructure. I thought to myself that these people haven’t lost their sense of beauty even after four years of war. Otherwise why would anyone risk his life by climbing right up to the masthead?

THURSDAY
, 23
MAY
1918
Harvey Cushing buys sugar in London

The hospital is situated at 10 Carlton House Terrace, close to Pall Mall and with a view over St. James’s Park. The fashionable address reveals that this is a private institution, solely devoted to the care of wounded officers and founded by a rich patron, in this case an upper-class Englishwoman, Lady Ridley.
^l
Cushing has come to visit an acquaintance, the airman Micky Bell-Irving, who is being treated here.

Cushing is in London on official business. He is to meet a number of high-ranking people involved in the organisation of British military medical care in order to discuss close coordination of resources relating to the treatment of neurological disorders. He was certainly not sorry to leave Boulogne-sur-Mer. The second German spring offensive—up in Flanders—has fortunately ebbed away and there is an uneasy calm at the front. But German air attacks have continued undiminished. The night before Cushing left for England was bright, moonlit and cloudless and Boulogne-sur-Mer was heavily bombed.

London is proving to be a confusing experience for Cushing.

In spite of the fact that the end of May is approaching, the city makes a grey and depressing impression. There are invalids everywhere. Most people seem to be longing for peace and there seems to be a general feeling that at least the war would have been over if the United States had not come in. And the mood has become much more open—the notorious British reticence has disappeared. Londoners have repeatedly come up to Cushing in the underground or on the street, obviously drawn by his American uniform, and politely offered him assistance or started explaining things that did not need explanation.

There are some food shortages in London, particularly of sugar and of butter, as Cushing has discovered. When he had breakfast in his hotel this morning he was served French bread with two small pats of some kind of unappetising, crumbling margarine, and there was no sugar for his coffee. At the same time, however, in a shop intended for American troops, he was able to buy two pounds of sugar for just a couple of pennies. His purchase was given to him discreetly wrapped in a box that had originally contained “Fatima’s Cigarettes” and he gave it away immediately to an English acquaintance. Everything is available as long as you have enough money and the right contacts. Cushing does not think the general level of health has deteriorated, however, since people are eating less and walking more and “their minds are probably the clearer” for it.