Пользователь - WORLD'S END

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What women have to do is to keep their restless and frantic men entertained. So Lanny would be pressed into service to take Eddie Patterson fishing, or tempt him into roaming the hills to explore ancient Roman and Saracen ruins. But truly it was impossible to get away from the war anywhere in France.

Once they stopped to watch the distilling of lavender, high up on a wind-swept plateau. There were odd-looking contrivances on wheels, with an iron belly full of fire, and a rounded dome on top from which ran a long spout, making them look like fantastic birds. A crew of women and older men were harvesting the plants, tending the fires, and collecting the essence in barrels. Pretty soon Lanny was talking with them, and they became more concerned to ask him questions than to earn their daily bread. Americans were rich and were bound to know more than poor peasants of the Midi. "What do you think, Messieurs? Will les Allemands be driven from our soil? And how long will it take? And what do you think the Italians will do? Surely they could not attack us, their cousins, almost their brothers!"

On Lanny's own Cap d'Antibes the principal industry was growing flowers for perfumes, and in winter this is done under glass. It was estimated that there were more than a million glass frames upon that promontory; and naturally those people who owned them were troubled to hear about bombs being dropped from the sky, and about strange deadly craft rising from the sea and launching torpedoes. Such things sounded fabulous, but they must be real, because often you could see war vessels patrolling, and now and then a seaplane scouting, and there were notices in all public places for fishermen and others to report at once any unusual sight on the sea.

Now came the flower growers, wanting to talk about les affaires. What did these foreign gentry think about the chances of enemy bombing of the Cap? What would be the effect, supposing that a stray torpedo were to hit the rocks? Would it have force enough to shatter those million glass frames? And what did it mean that people who were supposed to be civilized, who had come to the Riviera by the tens of thousands, as the Germans had done - many great steamers loaded with them every winter - should now go away and repay their hosts in this dreadful manner?

There came a letter from Mrs. Emily Chattersworth, who had fled from Les Forкts when the Germans came near, and after the great battle had returned to see what had become of her home. "I suppose I can count myself fortunate," she wrote, "because only half a dozen shells struck the house, and they were not of the biggest. Apparently they didn't get their heavy guns this far, and the French retired without offering much resistance. The Uhlans came first, and they must have had an art specialist with them, because they packed up the best tapestries and most valuable pictures, and took them all. They dumped a lot of furniture out of the windows - I don't know whether that was pure vandalism or whether they were planning to build breastworks. They did use the billiard table for that purpose, setting it up on edge; it didn't work very well, for there are many bullet holes through it. They used the main rooms for surgical work, and just outside the window are piles of bloody boots and clothing cut from the wounded. They raided the cellars, of course, and the place is a litter of broken bottles. In the center of my beautiful fleur-de-lis in the front garden is a shell hole and a wrecked gun caisson with pieces of human flesh still sticking to it.

"But what breaks my heart is the fate of my glorious forests.There was a whole German division concealed in them, and the French set fire to the woods in many places; the enemy came out fighting and were slaughtered wholesale. The woods are still burning and will never be the same in our lifetime. The stench from thousands of bodies which have not yet been found loads the air at night and is the most awful thing one could imagine. I do not know if I can ever endure to live in the place again. I can only pray that the barbarians will not have a second chance at it. The opinion of our friends here is that they are through and will be entirely out of France in another month or two."

So there was more ammunition for Eddie Patterson! One by one the militarists among the Americans were joining up; some in the Foreign Legion, others in the ambulance service, many women for hospital work. The French aviation service was popular among the adventurous-minded young men - but to Sophie this was the most horrible idea of all, for those man-birds were hunting one another in the skies, and the casualties among them were appalling. In the first days all France had been electrified by the deed of one flier, who had driven his plane straight through the gasbag of a Zeppelin, and out at the other side. The mass of hydrogen had exploded and the huge airship had crashed, an inferno of flame; the aviator, of course, had shared its fate.

Beauty Budd would fling her arms about her boy and cry: "Oh, Lanny, don't ever let them get you into a war!" And then one day she received a letter which made her heart stand still:

"Chйrie: Your visit shines as the most precious jewel of my memory. The news which I have to tell will make you sad, I fear - but be courageous for my sake. Your coming was the occasion of my having the opportunity to make the acquaintance of my commandant, and being able to volunteer for special service. I am being sent elsewhere to receive training, concerning which it is not permissible for me to write. For the present you may address me in care of l'Ecole Superieure d'Aeronautique at Vincennes.

"Your love is the sunshine of my life, and knows neither clouds nor night. I adore you. Marcel."

13

Women Must Weep

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IT WAS going to be some time before Lanny Budd would see his father again. The warring nations would have their "missions" in New York for the purpose of buying military supplies; Robbie's headquarters would be there, and he would make a great deal of money. The various governments would float bonds in the United States, and persons who believed in their financial stability would buy the bonds, and the money would be spent for everything that was needed by armies. Robbie explained these matters in his letters, and said that England and France had placed enough orders with Budd's to justify great enlargements of the plant.

Robbie wrote cautiously, being aware that mail would be read by the French censor. "Remember what I told you about your own attitude, and do not let anybody sway you from it. This is the most important thing for your life." That was enough for Lanny; he did his best to resist the tug of forces about him. Robbie sent magazines and papers with articles that would give him a balanced view; not marking the articles - that would have made it too easy for the censor - but writing him a few days later to read pages so-and-so.

"One thing I was wrong about," the father admitted. "This war is going to last longer than I thought." When Lanny read that, the giant armies were locked in an embrace of death on the river Aisne; the French trying to drive the Germans still farther back, the Germans trying to hold on. They fought all day, and at night food and ammunition were brought up in camions and carts, and the armies went on fighting. Battles lasted not days but weeks, and you could hardly say when one ended and the next began. The troops charged and retreated and charged again, fighting over ground already laid waste. They dug themselves in, and when rain filled up the trenches they stayed in them, because it was better to be wet than dead.

It was the same on the eastern front also. The Russian steam roller had made some headway against the Austrians, but in East Prussia it had got stuck in the swampy lands about the Masurian Lakes. The Russians had been surrounded and slaughtered wholesale; but many had got away, and fresh armies had come up and they were pushing back and forth across the border, one great battle after another.