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76 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
moderately clear or only encumbered by a single file of wagons,
the chauffeur immediately puts on a terrific speed to gain
ground.
It was still daylight when we returned to our domicile,
where the Crown Prince, just back from his day’s work, was
resting in the doorway. A moment later I went out for a
walk in the town. At the bridges over the Meuse I was stopped
by the sentries, who in authoritative but invariably polite
tones asked to see my Ausweis. That they found me
suspicious-looking, ambling along as I did with a sketch-book
under my arm, was not to be wondered at. Only one of them,
an honest Landwehr man, declared categorically that my pass
was not sufiicient. " Oh," I said. " The name of the Chief
of the General Staff of the Field Army, General Moltke, does
not impress you ?
" " No, the permit must be vised by the
5th Army," he replied. A couple of his comrades saved the
situation after reading the permit, and declared that General
Moltke was good enough for them.
After a short visit to a field base hospital, accommodated
in a French artUlery barracks, I turned my steps homeward
and stopped, in an inquisitive mood, at the entrance to a shop
which was open and where soldier customers came and went.
As I overheard a couple of privates doing their level best to
make themselves understood by the women in the shop, I
stepped up to offer my services as interpreter. It turned out
to be a modest sort of place for women’s clothing, linen, stays,
lace, handkerchiefs, stockings, scent and soap and other
useful toilet articles. The proprietress, Madame Desserrey,
had been a widow for three years and now lived there with
her three daughters and a sister and subsisted on the profits
of her little business. The soldiers who were engaged in dis-
cussion inside, wanted to buy shirts and pants, and Mme.
Desserrey was trying to explain that if they would come back
with the material, she would sew the garments they wanted.
With this information they seemed satisfied, bought a couple
of boxes of soap and went away.
I asked Mme. Desserrey if she had not been ruined by the
war, but she replied that she had not suffered any want so
far. She hoped that she would get through the autumn and
winter, and that the war would soon be at an end.
" Well, and what do you think of the German soldiers ?
"
I asked.
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