I ask for some particulars of the way in which the British Army “runs” the French towns and villages in our zone.  How is it done?  “It is all summed up in three words,” says an officer present, “M. le Maire!” What we should have done without the local functionaries assigned by the French system to every village and small town it is hard to say.  They are generally excellent people; they have the confidence of their fellow townsmen, and know everything about them.  Our authorities on taking over a town or village do all the preliminaries through M. le Maire, and all goes well.

The part played, indeed, by these local chiefs of the civil population throughout France during the war has been an honourable and arduous—­in many cases a tragic—­one.  The murder, under the forms of a court-martial, of the Maire of Senlis and his five fellow hostages stands out among the innumerable German cruelties as one of peculiar horror.  Everywhere in the occupied departments the Maire has been the surety for his fellows, and the Germans have handled them often as a cruel boy torments some bird or beast he has captured, for the pleasure of showing his power over it.

From the wife of the Maire of an important town in Lorraine I heard the story of how her husband had been carried off as a hostage for three weeks, while the Germans were in occupation.  Meanwhile German officers were billeted in her charming old house.  “They used to say to me every day with great politeness that they hoped my husband would not be shot.  ’But why should he be shot, monsieur?  He will do nothing to deserve it.’  On which they would shrug their shoulders and say, ’Madame, c’est la guerre!’ evidently wishing to see me terrified.  But I never gave them that pleasure.”

A long drive home, through the dark and silent country.  Yet everywhere one feels the presence of the Army.  We draw up to look at a sign-post at some cross roads by the light of one of the motor lamps.  Instantly a couple of Tommies emerge from the darkness and give help.  In passing through a village a gate suddenly opens and a group of horses comes out, led by two men in khaki; or from a Y.M.C.A. hut laughter and song float out into the night.  And soon in these farms and cottages everybody will be asleep under the guard of the British Forces, while twenty miles away, in the darkness, the guns we saw in the morning are endlessly harassing and scourging the enemy lines, preparing for the day when the thoughts now maturing in the minds of the Army leaders will leap in flame to light.

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