once at manoeuvres as the prussian crown prince charged at the head of his regiment, as sabres gleamed, plumes streamed, and hooves thundered behind him, he is reported to have said to one that galloped near him: "ah, if only this were the real thing!"
one need not doubt that the report is true. so a young man might feel as he led his regiment of cavalry, for the scene would fire the blood; all those young men and fine uniforms and good horses, all coming on behind, everything streaming that could float on the air, everything jingling then which could ever make a sound, a bright sky no doubt over the uniforms, a good fresh wind for men and horses to gulp; and behind, the clinking and jingling, the long roll of hooves thundering. such a scene might well stir emotions to sigh for the splendours of battle.
this is one side of war. mutilation and death are another; misery, cold and dirt; pain, and the intense loneliness of men left behind by armies, with much to think of; no hope, and a day or two to live. but we understand that glory covers that.
there is yet a third side.
i came to albert when the fight was far from it: only at night you saw any signs of war, when clouds flashed now and then and curious rockets peered. albert robbed of peace was deserted even by war.
i will not say that albert was devastated or desolate, for these long words have different interpretations and may easily be exaggerated. a german agent might say to you, "devastated is rather a strong word, and desolate is a matter of opinion." and so you might never know what albert is like.
i will tell you what i saw.
albert was a large town. i will not write of all of it.
i sat down near a railway bridge at the edge of the town; i think i was near the station; and small houses had stood there with little gardens; such as porters and other railway folk would have lived in. i sat down on the railway and looked at one of these houses, for it had clearly been a house. it was at the back of it that most remained, in what must have been a garden. a girder torn up like a pack of cards lay on the leg of a table amongst a brick wall by an apple-tree.
lower down in the heap was the frame-work of a large four-poster bed; through it all a vine came up quite green and still alive; and at the edge of the heap lay a doll's green pram. small though the house had been there was evidence in that heap of some prosperity in more than one generation. for the four-poster bed had been a fine one, good work in sound old timber, before the bits in the girder had driven it into the wall; and the green pram must have been the dowry of no ordinary, doll, but one with the best yellow curls whose blue eyes could move. one blue columbine close by mourned alone for the garden.
the wall and the vine and the bed and the girder lay in an orchard, and some of the apple-trees were standing yet, though the orchard had been terribly wrecked by shell fire. all that still stood were dead. some stood upon the very edge of craters; their leaves and twigs and bark had been stripped by one blast in a moment; and they had tottered, with stunted, black, gesticulating branches; and so they stood today.
the curls of a mattress lay on the ground, clipped once from a horse's mane.
after looking for some while across the orchard one suddenly noticed that the cathedral had stood on the other side. it was draped, when we saw it closer, as with a huge grey cloak, the lead of its roof having come down and covered it.
near the house of that petted doll (as i came to think of it) a road ran by on the other side of the railway. great shells had dropped along it with terrible regularity. you could imagine death striding down it with exact five-yard paces, on his own day, claiming his own. as i stood on the road something whispered behind me; and i saw, stirring round with the wind, in one of those footsteps of death, a double page of a book open at chapter ii: and chapter ii was headed with the proverb, "un malheur ne vient jamais seul;" misfortunes never come singly! and on that dreadful road, with shell-holes every five yards as far as the eye could see, and fiat beyond it the whole city in ruin. what harmless girl or old man had been reading that dreadful prophecy when the germans came down upon albert and involved it, and themselves, and that book, all except those two pages, in such multiplication of ruin?
surely, indeed, there is a third side to war: for what had the doll done, that used to have a green pram, to deserve to share thus in the fall and punishment of an emperor?
