Shops have reopened, as at Noyon, where
the French Government has advanced money to the business men. We drove
into the town of Ham (what is left of it!) just as we were hating
ourselves for being hungry. It is sordid and dreadful to be hungry in
the midst of one's rage and grief and pity--to want to eat in a place
like Ham, where one should wish to absorb nothing but history; yet our
officer guide, who has helped make a good deal of history since 1914,
seemed to think lunching quite as important as sightseeing. In a
somewhat battered square, busy with reopening shops (some of them most
_quaint_ shops, with false hair as a favourite display!) was a hotel.
The Germans had lived in it for months. They had bullied the very old,
very vital landlady who welcomed us. Their boots had worn holes in the
stair carpet, going up and down in a goose-step. Their elbows had
polished the long table in the dining room, and--oh, horror!--their
mouths had drunk beer from glasses in which the good wine of France was
offered to us!
"Ah, but I have scrubbed the goblets since with a fortune's worth of
soda," the woman volubly explained. "They are purified. If I could wash
away as easily the memories behind my eyes and in my ears! Of them I
cannot get rid. Whenever I see an automobile, yes, even the most
innocent automobile, I live again through a certain scene! We had here
at Ham an invalid woman, whose husband the Boches took out and shot.
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