Mary Borden JOURNEY DOWN A BLIND ALLEY

IT WAS Boddles who found the white envelope tucked into the lock of the gate. She brought it to me and held her torch over the paper while I read. It was from Gosset. General Huntzinger had sent them word that they must move on that afternoon. They had waited for us as long as possible---they were going to the village of C-----, seventy kilometers south and west, on Route X. We were to follow.

Bernard and Boutron had some difficulty in finding Route X on the map; it wasn't a main road. But at last they found C----. T. W. and Rosie waited in silence. I took a last look at the high locked gates of the unfriendly château, the dense shadow of the deserted park beyond. There was nothing for it. We must push on. We turned and began to nose our way through the dark.

I don't know how the girls managed to drive that night or on any of the nights that followed. We had no lights, not even side lights. Any vehicle showing a light of any kind would have been attacked by infuriated drivers from the military convoys that were on the move under the cover of darkness. No one did anything so foolish. It needed no military police to enforce the rule. The French Air Force had long since abandoned the open sky to the enemy and the enemy as everyone knew was creating havoc on the roads.

Rosie tells me that it wasn't as difficult nor as frightening as driving at night in the desert. There were the trees, she says, they helped. You could see the sky ahead between the two dark masses, and there were no mines. You didn't expect if you got off the road to be blown up---and if you drove very slowly you could see the shape of a truck before you bumped into it.

We did, I think, about ten miles an hour. From my place at the back I could see almost nothing. A deeper darkness, a shadowy bulk looming ahead, vague outlines of shapes to the side of the road. Many convoys were drawn up under the trees. There was the sound of subdued voices. The dark was populated by invisible troops. It was impossible to relax, to stop trying to see, to close one's eyes that were of no use---they ached but refused to be closed. We pushed slowly on. The road was narrow and winding. Now and then at a fork or a crossroads Dr. Bernard would get out and try to read the signposts by the light of his torch. Alas, there were two villages in the region called by the same name and we chose to make for the wrong one. We were still creeping toward it at midnight when what looked like a procession of elephants loomed up beside us. It was our own heavy convoy. T. W. recognized the five-ton Renaults in the dark and stopped. I got out. There was a glimmer of light up the road. I called, "Are you 282?" And a voice quite near me answered out of the night, "Hello, May. You are on the wrong road."

It was Barbara. The heavy trucks had lost their way and were turning back when the Bedford had broken down. Barbara was repairing it in the dark. The sergent chef in charge of the heavy convoy came to me next day to tell me, "Miss Graham---she has genius. In twenty minutes, in complete darkness she did a job that might have taken me anything up to an hour in daylight."

We reached the proper C----- sometime after one in the morning.. Gosset had posted one of our orderlies in the road to conduct us to the château. We stepped out of the night into a brilliantly lighted salon full of strange, sleek ladies and gentlemen. It seemed that they were friends of' Dr. Guénin's. It appeared that one of the ladies, a very handsome blonde in pale blue with scarlet fingernails was Guénin's wife, that the stout gentleman in a dinner jacket. was a junior Minister, that they were all refugees from Paris and that the Germans were already in possession of the capital.

The lady of the house was very kind. I've no idea what she looked like. She has no face nor body in my memory. I don't remember her name, nor the names of her friends. Even the Minister who did me such a good turn next morning is a man without identity. I was dazed and I see that pretty lighted salon with its elegant Louis XV furniture now as I did then---through a mist. Madame Guénin is the only one of the group who stands out clearly. Her opulent beauty, her hard waved hair, her white hands so exquisitely manicured made me shockingly aware of my own dilapidated. condition. Rosie was wilting on her gilded chair, Boddles was gray, even T. W.'s solid shoulders sagged. Barbara was black as a chimney sweep.

Our hostess led the way to the dining room. We sat down to a supper of bread and butter and white wine. Gosset stalked up and down while we ate. The others were billeted, he explained, in the village, but a camp bed had been put up for me in the billiard room. We would move on next day if we could get petrol. That was doubtful. We were entitled to petrol as a military formation but with every civilian car in the country on the road, the army was starved for petrol. Our tanks were dry, but Guénin thought he knew where he could get some. He would start out early in one of the light lorries and be back, if he was lucky, by noon.

He would make for Nevers and cross the Loire. General Huntzinger had advised our crossing the Loire as soon as possible. He would see me in the morning. Our hostess had offered the unit the hospitality of the garden and as the weather was fine Miss Stanhope proposed that we should picnic under the trees.

I was sitting in the sun next day with Maureen when the Minister came to find me with an astonishing suggestion. Would I care to telephone my husband? If he had offered me the sun, moon and stars, I couldn't have been more surprised. We were so lost, so cut off from anything that was familiar, so far away apparently from any British unit that I couldn't believe it possible to get in touch with B. But he said he thought he could manage it. Being a Minister he was allowed to use the telephone.

I began to tremble. I remember my legs trembling as I got to my feet. I did my best to speak calmly. I didn't know where my husband was. I knew, or rather supposed, that be was with Paul Reynaud and the French government, but where was the French government?

They were at Tours three days ago, they might be in Bordeaux by now.

Then I remembered what B. had told me. "Ask for l'ambassade d'Angleterre, and you'll be put straight through---wherever you are." I could try.

My heart was thumping against my ribs as I followed the Minister into the house. He got through at once to the village post office, explained who I was and handed me the receiver. I said I would like to speak to the British Embassy. A pleasant woman's voice answered that she would ring me back. We waited. In a few minutes she rang through. She couldn't get the Embassy, she said, but she could give me the British consul in Lyons if that was of any interest. I said that it was, and a second later, the first Englishman's voice I had heard since I had said good-by to B. in Paris announced that the British consul was speaking.

"I am Mrs. Spears---wife of Major General Spears---my husband is somewhere with the French Prime Minister---I am retreating across France with my hospital. I would be most grateful if you could get a message through to him."

"I will try, Mrs. Spears. What is the message?"

"Tell him that we are all right---that we are making for Nevers---and that if he will send me a message care of the préfet at Nevers I will pick it up there tonight."

"I will do my best to get through to him."

I thanked the Minister and went out into the garden. A pleasant alfresco meal was in progress. Dorea and Dodo were handing round sardines, bully beef, pickles, salad and cheese. How happy they all looked sitting on the grass with their tin plates in their laps. One would have thought they hadn't a care in the world, were trekking across France for fun. That the half dozen flirtations begun in St. Jean le Bassel had not been interrupted was evident. The officers were gallant, their pretty nurses sparkled. Maureen made room for me beside her.

"Did you get through to the general?"

"No, but I spoke to the British consul at Lyons. He is going to try to get him a message. I said we would call at the prefecture in Nevers for the answer. If B. gets the message he will tell us what to do."

The consul did get through. B. got my message and sent word to the préfet at Nevers that I was to make for Bordeaux with my unit as fast as possible, but I didn't know this until I arrived in England two weeks later---For we never reached Nevers. The Germans were too quick for us.

It wasn't until some time after lunch that Guénin finally arrived with the petrol; it took an hour to fill all the tanks; it must have been three o'clock before we moved off---and when we got within twenty miles of Nevers we were warned by a motorcyclist that we would find it impossible to cross the river by the Nevers bridge. It was completely blocked with traffic, but there was a light suspension bridge ten miles this side. It was built to carry a maximum weight of. three tons, we might try it.

Gosset decided to make the attempt. There would be no difficulty about the staff cars and light vans. The women could cross safely whatever happened to the five-ton trucks and the X-ray trailer. He took us across first, then went back to fetch the big Renaults. From the far side, I watched him climb up beside the driver of the first heavy lorry; it advanced very slowly; the bridge swayed. It could have taken only two or three minutes but it seemed much longer. There was an agonizing moment when the great loaded vehicle was halfway across and the bridge sagged sickeningly. I waited for a sound of cracking, it held, the truck crawled on and Gosset jumped down in the road beside me. He gave directions to the others, beckoning them on. One by one they crept forward. We had crossed the Loire.

I said to myself, "We are safe." I believed that our retreat was at an end. It was here that the French Army would make its stand. I would go to Nevers next day. There would be a road down our side of the river. I would cross the Nevers bridge on foot, find my way to the prefecture and get news of B.

I couldn't have been more mistaken. The French had never intended apparently to defend the Loire---and I, as I say, never reached Nevers for the reason that German armor got there next day, traveling down the left bank of the river, while we moved down the right making not for Nevers but for La Palisse.

It was Médecin Inspecteur Wörms who bobbed up, ordered us to La Palisse and by so doing saved us perhaps from driving slap into the enemy. We had pushed on to a village called Torteron after crossing the river and I was sitting alone outside a café. The others had scattered, Dorea to hunt for eggs for our supper, Dr. Bernard to search for billets and the nurses to raid the village sweet shop. I half closed my eyes. I was weary. Suddenly a military car flashed past, a familiar, startled face looked out and a hand waved; it was Wörms with three of his medical staff. They were traveling at great speed but they stopped a hundred yards up the street and I hurried after them.

Where had I come from? What was I doing here? Where was my unit?

The unit was here, I said. Gosset was somewhere about. Dr. Bernard was looking for billets.

Billets? We mustn't stop here---we must push on at once.

I said, "But we have crossed the Loire. I thought once we had crossed the Loire---"

Wörms was breathless and in a hurry. He couldn't stop. He was on his way to La Palisse. If I must stay the night in Torteron then I must. But we were to leave early next morning without fail. I would find him in La Palisse. He drew himself up, puffed out his little chest, became for a moment the pompous inspector general of the IVth Army. It was there, in La Palisse, that he intended to assemble his principal formations. If I would call at the mairie at ten o'clock he would leave word as to his whereabouts and give us our orders. No, he couldn't stop now to see Gosset. He turned, scuttled for his car. We would get our orders in La Palisse. He was gone.

I tried to reason it out. Did this mean that the French were not going to defend the Loire or was it merely that the Service de Santé wanted their hospitals well behind the front?

A little old gentleman in black with a neat white beard was approaching as I walked back to the café. He lifted his hat. "I am Professor Pernot of the Sorbonne," he said. "Am I right in thinking that you are looking for lodgings for your nurses?"

I said that it was so.

"Then perhaps I can be of some service. I have a house just outside the village. I could give you six beds. I am leaving with my wife and daughters and grandchildren early in the morning but there are three empty rooms with two beds in each and you are welcome."

I accepted with alacrity. He was most kind. I would tell my médecin chef and collect five of my young ladies.

"It is just over there," he said, pointing to a wood. "There is a green gate. I will go ahead and tell my wife that you are coming. She and my daughters are packing. I fear that you will find a certain disorder---but it is a pleasant house and the beds are comfortable."

Dr. Bernard was relieved when I told him. To find billets for us all in this meager village was well-nigh impossible. The nurses were casées but not as yet all the drivers. So I collected Maureen, Dorea, Maria, T. W. and Rosie and took them to what we always allude to now as the Constant Nymph's house. For the professor's family were enchanting and absurdly inconsequent even in their distress and the house was delightful. All the windows were open and it was as if a clean fresh wind were blowing through them to turn everything topsy-turvy. The professor's wife met us in the hall. She was a tall, ample woman, still beautiful, her arms were full of bright clothing, pinafores, gingham dresses, bathing suits, her fair hair was tousled, her cheeks were flushed, a couple of delightful sunburned brats clung to her full skirts.

"You will forgive me," she said, "if I don't show you to your rooms." A lift of her fine massive head showed us the stairs. "At the top," she said, and then as we mounted---"There is hot water if you would like baths. The bathroom is at the end of the corridor."

The rooms were flooded with afternoon sunlight. They had an air of gaiety. The twin beds in mine were as I remember painted blue with garlands of roses on the headboards. There were bookshelves filled with children's books. A worn armchair covered in faded cretonne stood by the window. Les Malheurs de Sophie lay open on the floor beside a battered doll. One could look out across the rich luxuriant country to the great river that flowed so broad and steady between its strong banks.

How quiet it was, how beautiful, how peaceful. There was no sign nor sound of war. The road up which we had come was empty. The sky was serene, the setting sun was flooding the world with glory.

High sweet voices were calling to one another downstairs. "Mais je suis certaine que je l'ai mis dans le placard en bas. Regarde encore, chérie. Non, ma petite---non---La Chatte--- impossible."

The professor's younger daughter came up to see if there was anything she could do for us. I remember her as very slender, a frail creature physically, but spirited, with the ardent sensitive face of an intellectual.

She worked, she told us, at the Ministry of Information at Moulins and had come home to help her parents pack. Her sister's husband was up there, somewhere.

Must they go?

Yes, because of the children. One couldn't submit children to the strain of bombing.

She stared out of the window, her fine eyes clouded for a moment.

"Have you news of England?" she asked.

I said no; we had been moving too rapidly to get letters.

"We look to England," she said, "and Mr. Churchill to save France."

They were still packing when I went down to say good night. They were leaving, the professor said, at four in the morning. The house was ours, his wife said. We must help ourselves. Please would we take the stores? She swept me out to the kitchen, showed me the well-stocked store cupboard, coffee, Sugar, rice, macaroni; we must take the lot, otherwise the Germans would have it. And here were a hundred pairs of socks that she and her daughter had knitted for the troops.

"But why do you go?" I asked, thinking of the dreadful stream of refugees on the roads. "Why don't you stay here? You are safer here surely in your own home?"

I couldn't bear to think of this family swept away into that frenzied torrent; stranded inevitably when their petrol gave out, obliged to camp out as so many any thousands did by the roadside, killed perhaps or mutilated by bombs.

But they were determined to go and we saw them off next morning not at four but at six o'clock, three women, two children and a frail little old man packed into two small Citröens, the professor at the wheel of one, a daughter driving the other; bags, bedding, pots and pans tied outside, the children clutching their most precious toys, their eyes big with wonder.

Maureen and I went back into the empty kitchen and took some coffee and sugar from the store cupboard. Dorea said we couldn't carry anything more, the van was already loaded to the brim. All the doors and windows were open to the sunny morning as we drove away.

Maureen sighed. "If there is to be a battle I suppose they were right to go.

We looked back toward the river.

"I don't see any movement of troops, do you?"

"I don't see a soul."

It must have been evident to us all by that time that there was to be no battle of the Loire. I was disappointed---that was all---not frightened. None of us were frightened. I have questioned the girls since and I know this is so. We thought, well, if they don't make a stand on the Loire, that's their business. They'll stand somewhere else.

It was arranged at breakfast that Gosset and I should go ahead to La Palisse in separate cars, that the rest of the unit should start for Moulins at noon and that Gosset should return to Moulins when we had received our orders from Wörms, pick up the unit and take it to join me at our next destination wherever that might prove to be.

I left at nine in my Renault, Rosie driving, Maria as second driver, Dr. Bernard and Mademoiselle Radenac with me as passengers. Gosset was to start at nine-fifteen.

Moulins was worse than Auxerre. We were held up by the traffic for two hours but got through at last and sped south through lovely southern country along a wide road shaded by great trees, reaching La Palisse with its turmoil of traffic about one o'clock. The congestion was considerable. We moved down the main street at a snail's pace; but the cars that hemmed us in now were military and the pavement swarmed with officers. We had caught up at last with the army---and there was Lecomte standing not a yard from us on the edge of the street in front of a hotel called L'Ecu de France.

He saw me, stepped forward, spoke through the car window. General Réquin was there. He was lunching at this hotel. They had taken it over as a mess. He was certain the general would want to see me.

I said that we were on our way to the mairie to find Wörms and get orders. We would come back. Would he arrange for us to be allowed to lunch in their popote? He would. We moved on. But when we got to the mairie there was no message from Wörms, nor at the prefecture, nor at the post office, so we left word for Gosset at the mairie that we were lunching at the Ecu de France and made our way back to the hotel.

Lecomte came out and took us through to the dining room. The general, he told us, apologized for not asking us to lunch with him, he was lunching with General Huntzinger, but a table was reserved for us.

It was the sixteenth of June. The French Army was about to lay down its arms. We suspected nothing as we sat down at our table in the pleasant sunny dining room. General Huntzinger, General Réquin and their combined staffs occupied a long table in the center of the room. Every table but our own was filled by French officers. Several were friends and came and spoke to us. One crossed the room to tell me that General de Lattre had been missing for three days. General Réquin joined us when Huntzinger left the room. He was vigorous and more excited than I had ever seen him. He rapped out his words like hammer strokes.

"I have no longer an army. I couldn't bring up reserves if I had them on account of the refugees. When I find a gun by the side of the road I take it. One must see things as they are."

A staff officer appeared at his elbow to tell him that General de Lattre had got through, had been on the telephone. General Réquin asked me what our plans were. I said we had come to La Palisse to get orders from Wörms but had failed to find him. He said he didn't know where Wörms was, hadn't seen him for some days. If I would come to his headquarters he would give us our orders. Remembering Songy, I said I would make one more attempt to find Wörms and Gosset. Gosset should have followed but he hadn't turned up. We went back to the mairie; there was still no message from Wörms and no sign of Gosset. Réquin's headquarters were in a big school. He gave me two maps and told me to make for the Mont d'Or. I said it was too far---that the unit was waiting for orders at Moulins, that as Gosset hadn't turned up I must go and fetch them. He said I was on no account to go back to Moulins. It was Gosset's responsibility to bring on the unit. If the Mont d'Or was too far I had best go to Gannat the other side of Vichy. We stood in the doorway in the hot sun. I said, "If France should make peace, Great Britain will fight on alone, and I must take my girls home."

He was silent a moment, then, "You will have time. You are not the only British unit in France."

I left him on that. I didn't see him again until five years later. He had hesitated, considered telling me the truth that Pétain was going to ask for an armistice next morning, and had decided that he was not free to tell me.

We went back to the mairie once more; there was still no sign of Gosset but someone told us where we could find Wörms---and we did find him at last in a village fifteen miles from La Palisse, hiding under some trees. He had quite forgotten that he was to have sent us orders. His only orders, when I asked for them, were, "Sauvez-vous."

We had to decide now whether to go on to Gannat and trust that Gosset would get one of the messages that we left for him at the mairie, the prefecture and the post office, or go back to Moulins. Dr. Bernard wanted to go on to Gannat. It was probable, indeed almost certain, that Gosset finding himself blocked by the traffic at Moulins had turned back and taken the unit south on another road altogether. I was tempted for a moment to agree.

To push back to Moulins meant a sixty-kilometer drive toward the enemy and against the flood of refugees. Maria had passed out with a violent sick headache. Rosie would have to stay at the wheel. Could she do it? Bernard was most probably right. But there was just a possibility that Gosset was lying dead or unconscious in a ditch. If that were true, the unit was waiting in Moulins. How could I turn my back on them? I couldn't.

I turned to Rosie. "We must go back to Moulins," I said. "Can you carry on?" She nodded.

Never shall I forget that drive with frail Rosie at the wheel, her curls flying loose under her khaki cap, her horn screaming as we bounded off the road and bumped in and out among the trees. Mademoiselle Radenac beside me was silent. She had been silent all day. Dr. Bernard said nothing more. Maria alas was slumped down in her seat in front, her head lolling. I sat behind Rosie and kept up a steady monotone of command, for she was a gentle creature, not a thruster like T. W.; and to push one's way against the avalanche of cars needed power, persistence, ruthless determination.

"Sound your horn, Rosie. Sound your horn." Then louder when she hesitated. "Sound your horn, I tell you. I'm not cross, but sound your horn."

The sun was sinking on our left. A golden light streamed between the tree trunks touching the demoniac faces of the oncoming mob with a lurid glow. A woman with flying red hair screamed as she bore down on us. Rosie flung her wheel over, the car rolled on the edge of a ditch; we grazed a tree and were again facing the torrent of oncoming maniacs.

It took us three hours to do the sixty kilometers. Moulins was a hell of milling vehicles and terrified pedestrians. There were a good many French troops, I noticed in the crowd. Some were drunk and had hysterical women with them. But there was no sign of the unit. Mairie, prefecture, post office, we went to all three, but there was no message. The Germans, we were told, were at Nevers. There was nothing we could do save leave messages and double back, taking the road this time for Gannat.

ANOTHER long drive through the dark. Rosie was still at the wheel. She had been driving since eight o'clock that morning, for the past three hours against grinding torrents of machines---and she was so young. I could just distinguish her head against the shadow in front of me. I feared she might collapse when we got to Gannat, not before.

I was depressed and apprehensive. We were approaching, I felt, a climax. This mad trek across France couldn't go on much longer. Suppose the French asked for an armistice? What should I do? General Réquin said we would have plenty of time. But I had lost the unit. That was the dreadful thing. If they had waited at Torteron they were prisoners presumably by now. But they couldn't have done that. They had orders to come to Moulins. They were to have left Torteron at noon. Even if Gosset were dead in a ditch Guénin would have brought them to Moulins-yet no one in Moulins had heard of them. Then where had they gone?

It was eleven o'clock when we reached Gannat but the dark streets of the little town were filled with lost, hungry, frightened people. The square was crowded with cars; the cars were full of sleeping forms and the hotel was a bedlam. Dr. Bernard and I pushed our way in. Men and women were fighting to get to the dining room, old women and children were asleep on the stairs. An ugly mob seemed to have invaded the kitchen. A man erupting through a spring door clutching a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine was attacked by two screaming women. We made our escape. Food was out of the question. What about beds? Dr. Bernard said, "We'll try the Bureau de la Place."

We were recounting our plight to the young lieutenant in charge of la place when the telephone rang and there was Gosset talking out of the distant dark. And it had been as Dr. Bernard had thought. He had found it impossible to get through the traffic at Moulins, so had gone back and had taken the unit on another road to a place called Le Thiel. From Le Thiel be had rung up the prefecture at Moulins and been given our destination. "Tell him," I said to Bernard, "to wait for us at Le Thiel. Ask where it is and tell him we will join him the first thing in the morning--that he is on no account to leave before we arrive."

The lieutenant said when Dr. Bernard had rung off that the only beds he could find for us for the night were "chez les frères." It wasn't permitted as a rule for ladies to enter the House of the Brothers but he was sure that the head Brother would take pity on us.

I don't know how we found our way to that calm refuge. I don't remember where we parked the car. I recall stumbling through the dark street, knocking at the side door of a high shadowy building and being led up a narrow winding stair by a silent figure in a black cassock. He held his fingers to his lips as he opened the door at the top of the stairs. It was best that our presence should not be known to the younger brotherhood. He smiled faintly. His eyes were serene and compassionate. There were two double bedrooms and one single. You had to pass through one of the double bedrooms to reach this, it was unfortunate. I would share the communicating room, I said, with Mrs. Howe. I was sure Dr. Bernard wouldn't mind using our room as a passage. Rosie and Mademoiselle Radenac would go next door. The Brother wished us good night and withdrew down the winding stair. How wonderful it was. Beautiful clean beds with white sheets, washstands with clean face towels, and silence, utter quiet. Dr. Bernard disappeared into his sanctum, Maria fell like a log on to her bed.

Ten minutes later when I looked into Rosie's room I found her asleep, but Mademoiselle Radenac was on her knees, her hands clasped in prayer.

I lay awake for some time. Though it was a great relief to know that the unit was safe, I was still strangely apprehensive. There could be no peace for me until I had rejoined them. Something more, something worse might happen; was, I felt, bound to happen. As long as we were all together I didn't mind what befell, but being separated from the others filled me with acute anxiety. Suppose Gosset took it into his head to leave Le Thiel before we got there? Suppose the Germans got there before us as they had done at Nevers? Suppose I never found the girls again? I was responsible for them; I had brought them to France---and France was disintegrating before our eyes.

My anxiety was clairvoyant. The worst moment of our retreat was bearing down on me out of the future, I felt it coming.

Le Thiel, Dr. Bernard said, was only forty miles away. If we left by nine we would be there by eleven, and Gosset was certain to wait for us. So we had coffee and biscuits in a café before starting off and I told myself as we took the road again that it was foolish to be in such a fidget. Gosset had been told to wait and he would wait. Why fuss? But I did fuss. Are you sure we are on the right road, Bernard? Yes, he was sure, look here it is on the map. But we are making for Montluçon, a big town; why should Gosset have taken the unit to this place? He had called it a village, hadn't he? But we were in a large industrial area. It was true. Factories, warehouses, hideous rows of dingy houses stretched ahead of us. We might have been entering the suburbs of London or Manchester.

"Do ask someone, Dr. Bernard, if we are on the right road."

So we stopped in front of a warehouse and asked the way to Le Thiel and were told that this was Le Thiel.

"But it can't be."

"But it is."

"Then how are we to find the unit?"

"We must go to the mairie."

So the old search began once more. We asked at the mairie, at the préfecture, at the Bureau de la Poste, as we had done the night before at Moulins. And the result was the same. No one had heard of Ambulance 282. I was frantic. What did it mean?

"Let's try the military hospital," I said in desperation.

It stood on a rise overlooking the hideous faubourg. As we turned into its bleak empty courtyard and stopped, I heard Rosie say in a small frightened voice, "I'm afraid we have almost no petrol."

There are moments so intensely disagreeable that they are unforgettable. It may be that they are eternal. I could believe that our solitary car is still standing in that great empty yard, that we are marooned there forever, a helpless group of feeble, bedraggled, insignificant creatures condemned in perpetuity to await the arrival of the German armored divisions. For I feel again the rising hysteria, the frantic helplessness. But now I am scurrying with Bernard across the wide gravel and down the silent tiled corridors of the ghastly place. Is it deserted? Have they all run away? No, an orderly is dozing on a bench outside the médecin chef's office and a large unbuttoned disconsolate médecin colonel rises from behind a desk as we go in.

"We have lost our unit. We are en panne."' Suddenly it came to me. "Is there another Le Thiel," I asked, "in this region?"

There was; the depressed colonel showed it us on the map. It was sixty 'kilometers away. It was not far from Moulins. We had passed close to it the night before.

I looked at Bernard. He faced me miserably. "I am sorry. I forgot to ask Gosset for the number of the road."

It was useless to fly at him in a rage. We must act. We must get to the other Le Thiel before the unit moved off. To get there we must have petrol.

"We've no petrol," I said to the colonel. "Can you let us have some?"

He spread out his big hands. "But I have none---not a drop---When I applied I was refused."

"Where can we get it?"

"At the caserne possibly."

"Where is the caserne?"

"At the top of the town."

I turned to Bernard. Gentle, kind, self-effacing creature, he would have to act for once with power. "We'll go to the caserne, Bernard, and you will get us petrol. You will get it if you have to commit murder for it."

We set off again. We had about two liters in the tank, Rosie said. Hundreds of military trucks were going the same way. A long queue was waiting in the yard of the barracks to fill up.

"Now, Bernard, it's up to you."

He disappeared into the building and we waited. None of us spoke. Truck after truck filled up and drove off. If the pump went dry? At last he came back with a blessed bit of paper in his hand. It was while we were awaiting our turn in the queue that we heard a loud-speaker announce to the assembled vehicles that Marshal Pétain had asked for an armistice.

My first reaction was, "It can't be true. I won't believe it." My second, "I've known since yesterday. Réquin knew. It was already decided when we saw him lunching with Huntzinger." My third, "Everything is changed and everything is worse than it was before. It's a question now of getting the girls out of France. How? Where? I must make a plan. We are a long way from anywhere. We mustn't lose our heads."

No one had said anything. No one spoke as we moved out of the yard.

"Lets get there as quick as we can, Rosie." She nodded.

It was almost as hard going as our drive to Moulins the evening before. But this time the road was packed with the army. An army disorganized, disrupted, without officers or equipment, a rabble in flight. Why? Hadn't they heard the news? If they had, it wasn't enough to stop them. Down they came in a headlong rush, truckloads of men who had thrown away their arms, hatless, flushed, disheveled. Here and there in the mass an ambulance filled with blowsy women and drunken soldiery. We saw no ambulance carrying wounded---nor any officers. Why did they pour down on top of us in this wild insensate way? Where were they going? What had they to fear now from the enemy?

We struggled on. We were silent. What could I say to Dr. Bernard and Mademoiselle Radenac? The war for them was over; for Rosie, Maria and me, it was just begun. We must hurry. It was desperately important to get back to the unit.

We reached Le Thiel at two-thirty. Rosie found her way by instinct to the village square and there, thank God, were our vehicles. But what in God's name was going on?

The trucks were drawn up to one side of the square, the staff cars to the other, the officers were all in a knot in the distance---and the girls---all the girls, nurses and drivers were standing in the center of the square by the war memorial with an assortment of suitcases and parcels on the ground at their feet.

Maureen came forward and said, "We are all ready to go, May."

"Go where?"

"To the coast or to the Spanish frontier."

I stared, I didn't for a moment take in what she meant. I noticed that the officers looked uncomfortable, that Gosset hadn't come forward. Suddenly I understood.

"So you were going without me?"

"I had given you up."

'Who was going? The whole unit?"

"No. I was taking the girls in the staff cars."

"I see; and you. were abandoning your luggage. Well, I would like to wash my hands and then have something to eat."

Barbara took me to her billet. "You've arrived, May," she said, quietly, "in the nick of time. We had orders to leave at three. We were about to mutiny."

"Who gave the orders?"

"Maureen. She said we must make our way to the coast at once---that if we waited for you we might be caught by the Germans."

"And Gosset, what did he say?"

"Gosset said she must do what she wished, that he couldn't be responsible for us now."

I went back to the square. The girls had abandoned the war memorial and were gathered on the porch of the café. There were benches and trestle tables. Rosie and Maria were tucking into bully beef and pickles. There was a certain amount of whispering going on---something that was almost like muttering. Not all the faces turned to me were confident. Not all the eyes looked straight into mine. Dorea brought me food and a cup of coffee.

"There's been a spot of panic, boss. Over there in the corner. It's made 'em uneasy. It may need handling."

I knew at once whom she meant. There was one member of the M.T.C. unit who couldn't take it, and only one. I had had my eye on her all along, for she was dangerous. She was the kind of person who when she is frightened becomes savage. She was savage now. Well, I could be savage too if necessary. So I spoke to the lot of them, but my words were addressed to her.

"Since the French have stopped fighting, it is obvious that we must go home. But we've plenty of time. General Réquin told me so yesterday. There are still a lot of British troops in France---and there's no need to worry. I see that you are worried. Some of you may be scared. I don't blame you. No one is to blame for being frightened, I've said that before and I say it again. No one need be ashamed of being afraid. What matters is the way you behave when you are afraid. What is despicable is to try and make others afraid because you are. That I will not tolerate. I think you understand me. Now go and collect your things and put them back in the cars as they were before."

Gosset was alone on the other side of the square. He was standing, his long legs wide apart, his arms folded. There was a haughty, sullen look on his face as I crossed to him. I said I was obliged to reverse Madame Schreiber's decision. We would all proceed together. Would he please give orders to reload the convoy?

"A vos ordres, madame." His mouth was bitter but there was a flash of triumph in his eyes. Was he glad that his prophecies had come true? Did he welcome the humiliation of his nation? I don't know what he was feeling at that moment. I don't even know what he felt about being saddled with twenty-five British girls at this crisis in the history of the entente. He had been ready and willing apparently to let Maureen take them off his hands and start away, all unprepared into the blue. But if he disliked the responsibility I thrust back on him, he shouldered it promptly. We were off again in convoy by three-thirty and from that moment---it was June 17, until we said good-by to him in the village of Noailles at two-thirty in the morning of the twentieth he took entire charge of us all.

We were completely dependent on him now. I pointed this out to Maureen in the car.

"How could you hope to make the coast or the Spanish frontier without maps or petrol?"

She hadn't thought she said, of that.

Didn't she realize that it was only as a part of a military unit that we had any hope of getting anywhere? If she had been left alone with the girls they would have forfeited their official status, would have become simply a group of lost British women of no standing with the French authorities and with no right to draw petrol. We were hundreds of miles from the nearest port---farther from the Spanish frontier. Who could tell us what port to make for? We had no idea what was going on, what sort of armistice would be signed, where the British were. All we knew was that France was in chaos. To the refugees had been added the army, a disorganized, routed army. It was madness to think that anyone would help us, in the vast distressing confusion. No one would or could help us but our own officers. Guénin must get us petrol. Gosset alone could get us the information we needed. We must stick to 282 until we knew that we were within reach of some British force, naval or military; we could then make a dash for it, not before.

It was as I expected, only more so. My presence in the unit as the wife of a British general, directrice of a French ambulance, had obtained for us up to now great courtesy and many favors. All that was changed immediately. That very afternoon, not four hours after the news of the armistice, when I went with Gosset to interview an officer about a place to billet for the night, I was received with such cold animosity that I didn't venture again to intervene with any French authorities. The explanation is clearer to me now than it was at the time. We, the British, were no longer allies---that was all there was to it. I didn't know this but it was so. And they knew it. All the little captains and majors who distributed petrol bons and bons for billets and bons for ration, all were aware that les Anglais were leaving them to carry on the war elsewhere. Indeed many were convinced that the British had left them in the lurch long before, at Dunkirk. And some believed that they had never come at all---had only made a pretense of sending troops to France.

Their resentment, these premises given, was natural. What seems extraordinary is that the change came so quickly. I was the great benefactress and friend in the morning, by evening I was an enemy in their midst and was looked upon not only with detestation but with the gravest suspicion.

So I was obliged to hide behind Gosset. And that brings me to the second surprising thing about our last days in France. He didn't like me and I didn't like him. We had been bitterly opposed over the war. He had believed passionately in, defeat, I as passionately in victory. We had quarreled and I had said hard things to him. But had I been his mother or his cherished sister, he could not have looked after me and mine more adequately. Not with solicitude, not with any show of kindness or friendliness. No, the other officers were kind and solicitous, not Gosset. Gosset was arrogant, punctilious, extremely cold, brilliantly efficient. If he was having his revenge, it was a superb performance.

Chapter Eleven

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