Lesser Victories

I

AT first people were too tired, too sad, too dulled to emotion, to grasp the great fact of deliverance. It was only when it touched some homely, common experience that they could react to it. Madame B— said to me, ‘Now we are very happy, but we cannot realize that we are.’

That was why I was so grateful to a little brown horse, despised or forgotten by the Germans, that pulled a two-wheeled cart piled high with copper soup-kettles, brass pots and lamps, and bronze andirons, into Brussels about four o’clock Sunday afternoon, November 17. The liberation of the city had been proclaimed from the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville at ten o’clock, and a few minutes later, the owner of the cart was on his way to the country, where he had buried by night, many months before, the copper and brass which the Boches were prepared to seize. And now he was returning, green boughs sticking from the pots, flowers blossoming from the kettles, and dozens of little Belgian flags floating gayly over all. This was a victory each child and grownup understood instantly, and the hero was acclaimed with shouts of laughter and hand-clapping all along his route, while the essential queue of small boys followed in the street.

As the triumphal cart was rolling through the city, shopkeepers were feverishly busy excavating or uncovering this or that treasure, and tying it with red and yellow and black; and the following morning, happy crowds proceeded from shop to shop to celebrate each window victory — a skein of yarn here, a sewing-machine there. The Mansfield Manufacturing Company of Antwerp achieved a saccès éclatant, with its display of metal recovered from beneath the floor. Since the day they requisitioned the factory, the Boches had been innocently tramping back and forth above it.

There was also the reverse of the picture: other crowds before other windows — of the shops whose seizable property had not been requisitioned, for obvious reasons, and wiiose proprietors, having trafficked with the enemy, now paid the price of their disloyalty. All usable, eatable stocks were thrown to the people, fixtures were smashed, and the shop put out of business. In some cases the merchant was imprisoned, in others he fled to Holland or Germany. Those who thus took justice into their own hands were merciless, but they had been waiting long years for this day, and the crowd grinned with approval.

Friends went from house to house, to participate in the victories of the kitchen and the hearth. I called on Madame L— and stumbled over gas-fixtures, and desk-sets, and brass-trimmed vases in the hallway. Next door I encountered three rolls of Persian rugs and packages of table-linen just returned from a remote cellar. The door-plates and knobs had been ripped away from these houses, as they had been from most, though I was surprised at the number of times the Germans had been foiled by successful wood substitutes. Often the wood was carved, or painted, or cleverly combined in fixtures with cords and strips of brocade.

There were few more joyous ways of welcoming a returned soldier (and can one imagine the reunion of father with wife and babies, now boys, from whom he has been so inhumanly, so utterly cut off for four years?) than by preparing for him a display of kitchen kettles or salon bronze. Beside his trophies of the line, Boche helmets or obus, were ranged these symbols of the triumphs behind that line.

What was happening in Brussels was happening everywhere else in Belgium. When the old butler of a château near Liége learned that a visit from one of the bands most accomplished in this art of robbing a nation was imminent, he heard at the same time that they were doing their work so thoroughly that it was useless to rely on inter-wall or floor-space for concealment. Moreover, they were probing the soil of the region with spiked staves—a bit of evil information which made the burial-plan seem hopeless, until suddenly he reasoned that, since they were probably employing their staves vertically rather than obliquely, if he cut deep directly underneath the hedge, he might yet prepare a successful cache. This he did, and the heirlooms of the château rested there till the retreating army had crossed the frontier. Somehow, for the old butler, there will always be a vital connection between the great victory and a sub-hedge tunnel. He was not so fortunate, poor man, with his wine. Since there was not time to bury it, he dropped the bottles into a large fish-pond on the estate; and I suppose the Germans have rarely been greeted by a more gratifying announcement than that made by the dozens of little white labels floating on the surface of the pond as they passed it early the following morning.

One sunny afternoon (the closing days of November were soft and blue, by the grace of God) I went to Antwerp, to learn if Madame O—’s great workroom had been able to carry on till the end. And as I walked into her drawingroom, her husband said laughingly, ‘You may not realize, madame, that over your head hang swords and bayonets.’ He pointed to the ceiling with one hand, while he drew up a chair for me with the other. ‘They are between that ceiling and the roof, where they have been comfortably incased for almost two years. They are a part of my collection that I determined the Boches should not steal. I have not yet had time to extract them — that will be quite a business, for we have scarcely been in our houses since we pulled the German rag down from the cathedral and burned it. We have been too occupied with hanging banners and garlands for the entry of the King, to find time to get at our roofs and walls. So there the swords are above us!’

While he was talking, Madame O— had gone to the mantelpiece to turn a bronze bust a little toward the left. ‘Yes,’ she agreed, ‘the walls and roof are difficult, but digging things up is easier.’ With a soft cloth she began rubbing the half-dozen mould marks on the bust. ‘ I have only just finished cutting the grave-clothes from this, and, except for the few spots, you will see it is quite as it was; interment has not injured it.’

The children were busy in a corner, attempting to reattach covers or handles to various objects. The eldest, a boy of seventeen, who had that day volunteered for the army, held up the lid of a water-pitcher. ‘ This they wanted more than anything else; they used it for the points of their obus. But they did not kill Allied soldiers with our pewter!’

His eyes shone — he had had at least that part in the fighting. I happened to know that, boy though he was, he had assisted, too, in the perilous work of getting letters, if not men, across the frontier. He had been suspected and arrested, though in the end he was released for lack of evidence.

Monsieur then told me that he himself was astonished that he had been able to save so much. ‘For you must understand, madame,’ he said, ’these requisitioning bands brought expert architects and engineers with them. They sat down in this house, for example, until they had produced a complete plan of it, showing the thickness of the walls and the passages, and accounting, as they supposed, for every cubic foot of space. They climbed over the roof and searched the gutters; but as so often happened during their four years of perfect organization and control, they crawled directly over my swords and were quite ignorant of their presence.’

Roof-gutters saved many a household not possessing a back garden. Naturally, everyone was on the alert to know when he might expect the pillagers; and the night before the threatened visit, the most agile member of the family (forced by thieves to assume the ràle of a thief) climbed stealthily in the dark to the roof, and tucked the coffee percolator under some leaves in the gutter, or lifted tiles and dropped the soup-kettle beneath them. The danger past, the necessary vessel was returned to service, only to be hurried off to the gutter again on the next alarm. Often the hiding-place was kept secret by the one who selected it: it was safer, if the Germans came, that but one should know. Instead of climbing to the roof at night, women occasionally packed their mosf prized copper and bronze into a suitcase, and as the Boches entered, Madame walked out, valise in hand — on her way to the canteen, she explained. At night she returned with her valise. Since some houses were visited five or six times, the players of the game grew expert. But their implacable oppressors profited, too, by experience; though there always remained a few stupid ones, and those who were ready to sell themselves for cigars or money.

The English aviator who dropped an erring bomb on an Antwerp civilian’s house, ripping off the facade, little realized what ‘ aid and comfort ’ he was offering the enemy. From ground to roof, every foot of the in ter-wall space was filled with brass and copper and wool and bronze — extraordinary hanging-gallery of objets d’art, suddenly revealed. Needless to add, the Germans brought this unlucky exhibit to a swift close, and thenceforth tore away suspected sections and hammered at walls more ruthlessly than ever.

In Brussels Madame M—’s beautiful hall was ruined, one German breaking his hammer on the marble wall in the process, but quickly requisitioning another to continue his work. In this same house, in order more comfortably to beat on a carved oak panel, the soldiers climbed on to a wooden chest. As it happened, the wall concealed nothing, while the chest, which they sat upon and did not open, contained several valuable bronzes.

The Germans did not like the forests — at least, individuals and small groups preferred the open. So it was sometimes possible for a peasant to tether his cow and pig in a trench between trees of a nearby wood, cover this subterranean stall with leaves, and return to look on complacently while the enemy agent tramped over his pretty open farm. Incredible as it seems, some peasants were able to conceal their cattle in the very barns the Germans searched. In one instance, a farmer secured his group at the rear of the barn, by filling the section in front to the roof with hay: when the soldiers entered, this was clearly but a fodder barn. It happened in this case that they slept on the premises several nights, in a building adjoining the barn, and this peasant performed the astonishing feat of feeding his cows (climbing back and forth over the hay-wall at safe intervals) and of keeping them quiet during the whole of the danger period.

II

How many heavy days and nights of the occupation have been enlivened by this game of beating the Boches on the farm, in the kitchen and drawing-room — and, I may add, in the dining-room and the bedroom! For, as soon as all linen and wool were commandeered, the sole purpose of each Belgian was to conceal his linen and wool. Floors were ripped up, and tablecloths and sheets and mattress-wool stuffed between the boards. There were other ways, too, of defeating the Boches. Women of Brussels dyed their stout linen sheets an attractive blue, or rose, or brown, and fashioned them into smart summer suits, making sandals to match from napkins. These they wore in triumph on the boulevards during all the summer of 1918, and for them this was equivalent to waving a Belgian flag in the face of the German officers they passed. When Doctor T— arrived in Brussels two weeks after the Germans had evacuated, and we were walking along the Boulevard Anspach, he expressed some surprise at the coats three women in front of us were wearing — they were of excellent material and very chic.

I smiled. ‘Yes, they are unusual,’ I said; ‘they are “Victory coats,” made of blankets saved from the Germans by being dyed dark blue and cut into those smart winter models.’

The two beautiful little daughters of M. A—, the banker, passed us; they also were wearing ‘Victory coats.’ The banker himself walked by later, in his new suit — he was being hailed by his friends, as ‘Le Baron de la Poche Gauche’ (the Baron of the Left-hand Pocket). This fun-loving people swiftly discovered that a suit which has been turned has the pocket on the left side. The spirit of raillery has defied all suffering, all oppression.

As is evidenced by their methods of search, the Germans suspected the secretion of mattress-wool; but they had no idea to what extent it had been hidden away. In the first place, many houses had more mattresses than those necessary for the family; in the second, hair mattresses were not requisitioned, and women laboriously separated the hair from one mattress, using it to refill, partially at least, several cases from which they had emptied the wool. Some mattresses were mixed; from these they carefully picked the wool, and when most hardly pressed, they filled cases with rags or straw.

I know women who stuffed their wool into bottles and buried it. Mademoiselle S— told me that she counted forty bottles to a mattress. When I arrived at Madame B—’s, on the nineteenth, the servants had just excavated the mouldy wooden cases containing the wool of eighteen mattresses. They were picking over the spoiled layers next the wood, and preparing to wash and sun the remainder. This household, too, had smuggled some of its wool into town, and had had it secretly spun into yarn for stockings for orphans.

Madame X—hid her possessions under the floor of the very room in her house in which a German officer slept. He lay on a thin hair mattress above the wool that had been picked from it. Thus she ‘mocked’ the oppressor. This delight in ‘mocking’ the Boches heartened the people to the end. Five days before Brussels was free, a brave spirit set a barrel stuffed with wool, damp earth still clinging to it, in the street. He had pulled some of the victorious fleece through the spout and stuck a Belgian flag through it, so that any German who ran might read.

It is indeed a true saying, that familiar one, ‘The Belgians meet everything with a laugh.’ They do, but this does not imply that there may not be tears behind the laugh. In the rue Royale, one rainy morning last week, I saw a cart drawn up before a comfortablelooking house, to which men were bringing baskets and odd, damp packages from the cellar and rear garden. They had already deposited two wicker hampers covered with white mould, that must have contained wine; and on top of them, three tall brass lamps wrapped in linen sheets that were green and rotted. Only tatters of the original newspaper coverings hung from the picture-frame rims, and lustres, and bronze portrait busts, which they carried reverently out, one by one. The servants scarcely spoke, and Monsieur stood by, directing silently the placing of this earth-smelling collection. His wife remained in the hallway, reviewing each article as it passed. Twice I tried to talk with her; but she could not speak, and her eyes were filled with tears. I felt as if I had been assisting at the exhuming of a corpse. I do not know what tragedy lay behind the moving of this heterogeneous collection of household treasure.

The lucky ones were those who had the neutral legations to help them. One official slept with fifteen clocks in his bedroom. It is reported that when, during ‘Revolution week’ (November 10-17), a German officer appealed at the Spanish Legation for protection for his trunks, the Marquis of Villalobar replied, ‘ I regret that I am unable to accommodate you, for my legation space is quite filled with the bronze and copper of my Belgian friends.’ Throughout the four years Belgians went to him for aid in their little personal struggles against their slave-drivers, — in battles which seemed comparatively unimportant, but whose winning was vital to the morale of the country, — and he rarely failed them.

I remember very well a celebrated potato-patch — once a wide lawn — in front of a country château, and the day in 1916, when the German officers arrived to commandeer all the potatoes it might contain. Madame, with a swift inspiration, remembering how pleased the Spanish Ambassador had been with the gift of a basket of potatoes a few months before, stoutly defended her plot. To the German announcement, she replied, ‘I must inform you that you may not disturb these potatoes, since the entire acreage is under the protection of the flag of Spain. They are the property of the Marquis of Villalobar.’ And the Germans left them. Then she, poor woman, had to exercise her wit and energy (there were no motors, no bicycles or carriages) to get a quick message to the Legation announcing to the Ambassador that she hoped he would be pleased to learn that she presented him this year, not with a basket, but with her complete potatocrop! And the marquis did not renounce the protectorate.

The amazing thing about Villalobar is that, at the end of the four years, he has won the gratitude of all parties; for the service that he rendered Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria in giving him asylum during Revolution week, together with other similar services, will not be forgotten by the Germans.

The danger that still threatens Brussels, ever since the enemy has left, is suggested in the following extract from a note I received this noon: ‘Just a word, to tell you I went to the Cinquantenaire Museum this morning to arrange our visit. However, it is wholly militarized and no one is allowed inside. It seems that bombs have been put in several places, and the military engineers are looking after them. Let us hope our poor laces will not be blown up. I might try again, but it seems safer not to go, as some of the bombs may explode as late as January first.’

At dinner, I mentioned the news concerning the bombs in the Museum to Monsieur H——, a member of the ministry recently returned from Havre. ‘The brain refuses to believe,’ he said, ‘even after these four years, in the deliberate planning of such an act of infamy; but, even if it was not deliberately planned, they are almost as culpable in choosing a museum as a storage dépôt for bombs.’ Then a whimsical smile crossed his face. ‘You may understand, madame,’ he added, ‘that this is disquieting information for me personally, when I tell you that I have a lovely Greek head of the third century hidden in one of the Egyptian mummycases of the Cinquantenaire. I have known the curator many years, and he agreed to try to save her for me. I should not be surprised if she has much company in her gruesome cell. But to lose her now after I believed her safe — she was my most precious possession [I looked about the beautiful salon, with its paintings and statues and Renaissance carvings] — to lose that exquisite Greek head after the vandals have gone — that would be too hard! ’

Possibly I enjoyed more than any other minor triumph that of Mr. Samuel, the sculptor, whose statue, La Brabançonne, was set up in the Place de Ville to celebrate the liberation of Brussels. I went as soon as possible to his studio, and found Madame Samuel rearranging several fine old copper and brass jars. Already the metal door-fixtures shone in place of the carved wooden substitutes; the window-fastenings were all in their places, for they had been heavily painted to imitate the gray of the surrounding wood. Across one corner of the studio, Mr. Samuel had built a false staff-wall, painted it, rubbed it with a dirty sponge, and, to give it a proper work-room finish, carelessly splashed plaster on it. It was behind this wall that he piled his bronze and copper, brass, and wool, and crystal candelabra, and in with them, carefully wrapped in wool, the model of his Victory statue — the starry-eyed, glorified woman, Belgium, thrusting forward the flag that symbolizes her martyrdom and her triumph. I had seen his model in 1916, not yet completed, when Mr. Samuel had expressed his confidence in me by lifting a linen cloth that concealed it.

When the space was filled, boards were placed across the top, and on them two solemn plaster busts; then stands and working materials in front of the whole. Monsieur stuffed the hollow busts in the studio with wool and other treasure, and went on with his modeling. All was so cleverly executed that, when the Boches arrived, they were completely deceived; if they had but once accidently leaned against the sham wall, all would have been lost. To prevent suspicion, a few bronze busts had been left on their pedestals; and when a vandal whipped out his knife and began scratching a shoulder to test the bronze, the artist, in swift anger, struck the knife to the floor. ‘ How dare you!’ he cried; ‘this is the work of these hands and this brain, and you shall not destroy it. I am professor, sculptor — titles you pretend to honor in your country. You shall not mutilate my statues.'

The soldier stood a moment, stupidly, awkwardly, then picked up his knife and passed on. This incident probably helped to save the whole situation. However that may be, the Boches were no sooner beyond the threshold, than the bronze model was brought forth and work on the Victory statue proceeded with fresh vigor and purpose. The last German soldier (except the two or three thousand in hiding) left Brussels at ten Sunday morning, and that afternoon La Brabangonne was being set up in the Place de Ville.

I have spoken of victories; alas, many knew only defeat. The Germans arrived too swiftly, or were inescapably clever or brutal. The four years furnish a record of continued pillage of articles of every description. In general, the country was thoroughly robbed of its metal and its wool, orphanages and hospitals being frequent victims. And at the end, when they knew they were going, the Boches sank lower than ever. Many caches which had escaped discovery during the entire period of occupation were uncovered in the last ugly raids, and their miscellaneous treasure thrown on to trucks or canal-boats. Some of this loot had to be abandoned, and is at present under army guard. However, despite the great crime and its outward achievement, in every smallest village little victories have been daily won.

Soldiers, visitors, facile journalists now hurrying through, may look in vain for any big demonstration of the joy of Brussels over her deliverance. In general, Belgium is too sad, too tired, too dulled to emotion to express much. The great cry to Burgomaster Max from the multitude in the Grand Place, as he appeared on the balcony above them after four years in German prisons, — a cry lifting toward joy but weighted still with the pain and weariness of years, — and five days later, the stronger, cleaner call to their beloved leader and King; a city of flags and flowers, — yes, — but to those hurrying by, little they can place their hands on. The immense reality is actual and tangible only in its partial, humble manifestations. That is why it has been a happy privilege to go from hearth to hearth, to celebrate with the victors the return of their household gods.