Produced by A. Langley
On the Edge of the War Zone
From the Battle of the Marneto the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes
byMildred Aldrich
Author of "A Hilltop on the Marne" "Told in a French Garden"
To The Public
The Friends, Old and New, Whose Persistent And Sympathetic
Demands For News Of Us On The Hilltop "After The Battle," Inspired
The Collecting And Editing Of These Letters,
This Little Book Is Gratefully Dedicated
On the Edge of the War Zone
La Creste, Huiry, Couilly. S et M.
September 16, 1914 Dear Old Girl:—
More and more I find that we humans are queer animals.
All through those early, busy, exciting days of September,—can it beonly a fortnight ago?—I was possessed, like the "busy bee," to"employ each shining hour" by writing out my adventures. Yet, nosooner was the menace of those days gone, than, for days at a time,I had no desire to see a pen.
Perhaps it was because we were so absolutely alone, and because,for days, I had no chance to send you the letters I had written, nor toget any cable to you to tell you that all was well.
There was a strange sort of soulagement in the conviction that wehad, as my neighbors say, "échappé bien." I suppose it is human. Itwas like the first days of a real convalescence—life is so good, theworld is so beautiful. The war was still going on. We still heard thecannon—they are booming this minute—but we had not seen thespiked helmets dashing up my hill, nor watched the walls of our littlehamlet fall. I imagine that if human nature were not just like that, Lifecould never be beautiful to any thinking person. We all know that,though it be not today, it is to be, but we seem to be fitted for that,and the idea does not spoil life one bit.
It is very silent here most of the time. We are so few. Everybodyworks. No one talks much. With the cannon booming out there noone feels in the humor, though now and then we do get shaken up abit. Everything seems a long time ago. Yet it is really only nine dayssince the French troops advanced—nine days since Paris was saved.
The most amazing thing of all is that our communications, which werecut on September 2, were reopened, in a sort of a way, on the 10th.That was only one week of absolute isolation. On that day we weretold that postal communication with Paris was to be reopened with anautomobile service from Couilly to Lagny, from which place, on theother side of the Marne, trains were running to Paris.
So Amélie gathered up my letters, and carried them down the hill, anddropped them hopefully in the box under the shuttered window of thepost-office in the deserted town.
That was six days ago, and it is only this morning that I began to feellike writing to you again. I wanted to cable, but there is no way yet, soI can only hope that you know your geography well enough not tohave worried since the 7th.
Although we are so shut in, we got news from the other side of theMarne on Wednesday, the 9th, the day after I wrote to you—the fifthday of the battle. Of course we had no newspapers; our mairie andpost-office being closed, there was no telegraphic news. Besides, ourtelegraph wires are dangling from the poles just as the Englishengineers left them on September 2. It seems a century ago.
We knew the Germans were still retreating because each morningthe booming of the cannon and the c