November g, 1916 LAND & WATER 
The White Road to Verdun— V 
15 
By Kathleen Burke 
[Miss Kathleen Burke brings to a close to-day her 
admirable studies of the fighting forces in France. No 
writer has brought out more strongly the spirit in -which 
France is ivaging this war. The passages which form the 
conclusion of this article arc of the highest significance] 
WE slept that night at Epernay in the heart 
of the Champagne district. The soil of 
FrJincc is doing its best to keep the vines in 
perfect condition and to provide a good 
vintage to be drunk later to celebrate the victory of 
France and her Allies. 
The keeping of the roads in good condition is necessary 
(or the rapid carrying out of operations on the front, and 
a marmite hole is promptly filled, if by a lucky shot 
the (jcrman batteries happen to tear up the roadway. 
Wc were proceeding casually along one road when a young 
officer rode up to us and told us to put on speed because 
we were under fire from a German battery which daily 
landed one or two shells in that particular portion of the 
roadway. It is wonderful how obedient one becomes at 
times ! We promptly proceeded to hasten ! After visit- 
ing General Debcncy and obtaining from him the necessary 
authorisation and an officer escort we entered Rheims. 
Rheims Cathedral 
The cathedral is now the home of pigeons, and as 
they fly in and out of the blackened window-frames, 
small pieces of the stained glass tinkle down on to the 
floor. The custodian of the cathedral told us that 
duiing the night of terror the German wounded, lying in 
the cathedral, not realising the strength and beauty of the 
French character under adversity, feared, seeing the 
cathedral in flames, that the populace might wreak 
vengeance on them, and that it was exceedingly difficult 
to get them to leave the cathedral. Many of the prisoners 
fled into corners and hid, and some of them even pene- 
trated into the palace of the Archbishop which was in 
flames. All the world knows and admires the bravery 
of the cure of the cathedral, M. Landrieu.x, who took 
upon himself the defence of the prisoners, for fear insults 
might be hurled at them. He knowingly risked his life, 
but when, next day, some of his confreres endeavoured to 
praise him he replied : " My friends, I never before realised 
how easy it was to die." 
One of the churches in the city was heavily draped in 
black, and I asked the sacristan if they had prepared for 
the funeral of a prominent citizen. He told me that they 
were that day bringing home the body of a young man of 
high birth of the neighbourhood, but that it was not for 
him that the church was decked in mourning. The 
draperies had hung there since August 1914 : " Since 
every son of Rheims who is brought home is as noble as 
the one who comes to-day, and alas ! nearly every day 
brings us one of our children." 
We lunched in the hotel before the cathedral where 
each shell hole has an ordinary white label stuck beside 
it with the date. The landlord remarked : " If you sit 
here long enough, and have the good luck to be in some 
safe part of the building, you may be able to go and 
stick a label on a hole yourself." 
After lunch we went out to the Chateau Polignac. 
To a stranger it would appear to be almost entirely 
destroyed, but when M. de Pohgnac visited it recently, he 
simply remarked that it was " less spoilt than he had 
imagined." This was just one other example of the 
thousands one meets daily of the spirit of noble and 
peasant de ne pas s'en faire, but to keep only before them 
the one idea — Victory for France — no matter what may be 
the cost. 
We went later to call on the " 75," chez elle. Madame 
was in a particularly comfortable home, which had been 
prepared for her, and where she was safe from the in- 
quisitive eyes of the Taubes. The men of the battery 
were sitting round their guns, singing a somewhat lengthy 
ditty, each verse ending with a declamation and a 
description of the beauty of la belle Suzanne. I asked 
them to whom Suzanne belonged, and where *uv lair 
damsel resided. " Oh," they replied, " we have no time 
to think of damsels called ' Suzanne ' now. This is our 
Suzanne," and the speaker affectionately gave an extra 
rub with his coat sleeve to the barrel of the " 75." By 
a wonderful system of trench work it is possible for the 
gunners, in case of necessity, to take refuge in the cham- 
pagne vaults in the surrounding district, and it is in 
the champagne vaults that the children go gaily to school 
with their little gas masks hanging in bags on their 
arms. It appears at first that the tiny ones were 
frightened of their masks, but they soon asked, like 
their elders, to be also given a sack and now one and all 
have learnt at the least alarm to put on their masks. 
There is no need to tell the children to hurry home. They 
realise that it is not w'ise to loiter in the streets for fear of 
the whistling shells. They are remarkably plucky, these 
small men and women of France. 
During one furious bombardment the children were 
safe in the vaults but one small citizen began to cry 
bitterly. He was reproached by his comrades for 
cowardice, but he replied indignantly:—"! fear noth- 
ing for myself. I am safe here, but there is no cellar 
to our house, and oh, what will happen to the little 
mother ? " The teacher reassured him by telling him 
that his mother would certainly take refuge in somebody 
else's cellar. 
On leaving Rheims we passed through several small 
hamlets where the houses had been entirely destroyed, 
and which now had the appearance of native villages, 
as the soldiers had managed to place thatched roofs 
on any place which had any semblance of walls standing. 
At Villars Coterets the Guard Champetre sounded the 
" Gare a Vous ! " Four Taubes were passing overhead, 
so we took refuge in the hotel for tea. The enemy 
did no damage in that particular village but in the 
next village of Crepy-en-Valois a bomb killed one child 
and injured live women. 
General Joifre 
At his headcjuarters next morning I had the honour 
of being received by the Generalissimo Joffre, and telling 
him of the admiration and respect which we felt for 
him and for the magnificent fighting spirit of the troops 
under his able command. He replied modestly by 
speaking of the British Army. He referred to the offen- 
sive on the Somme, and said, " You may well be proud of 
your young soldiers, they are excellent soldiers, much 
superior to the Germans in every way, a most admirable 
infantry ; they attack the Germans hand to hand with 
grenades or with the bayonet and push them back every- 
where ; the ( Jermans have been absolutely stupefied to find 
such troops before them." The General then paid a 
tribute to the Canadian and Australian troops and told 
me that that day the Australians had taken new territory, 
adding " And not only have they taken it but like their 
British and Canadian brothers, what they take they 
will hold." 
I explained to General Joffre, that, whilst I was not 
collecting autographs, I had with mc the menu of the 
dinner in the Citadel at Verdun and that it would give 
me great pleasure to have his name added to the sig- 
natures already on that menu. All the signatures were 
on one side, so 1 turned the menu over in order to offer 
him a clear space, but he turned it back again saying, 
" Please let me sign on this side, I find myself in good 
company with the defenders of Verdun." 
At departing he said to me " We may all be happy 
now since certainly we are on the right side of the hill." 
{Nous sommes sur la bonne pente.) 
In case this article should fall into the hands of 
any woman who has spent her time working for the men 
at the front, I would like to tell her the great pleasure 
it is to them to receive parcels, no matter what they con- 
tain. Fraternity and equality reign supreme in the 
trenches, and the man counts himself happy who re- 
ceives a little more than the others, since he has the joy 
