Monsieur Segotin's Story
cigarettes, that pipe tobacco, the Germans would never smoke. I might have sent all that stuff to our own army, you say, you who have seen that sort of thing organised in England so easily and so well. But in England time was given to you to organise. You have the sea between you and the rest of the world. But I ask you to consider what was the condition of affairs at this moment in Belgium. In the hour of mobilisation a country has other things to think about than organising the benevolence of its civilians. Besides, I too had no time. I wished to be in Saint Hilaire at once, and I could not risk that my choice tobacco should be enjoyed by those people. And so my fire was lit. It was a brilliant spectacle, Monsieur. The children of Blankenberghe enjoyed it vastly. Their parents, however, disapproved. 'What sinful waste,' they said, 'is here! This should all have been given to the poor'; and they looked on with longing eyes as I fed my flames with hundreds and fifties of Upmanns and Laranagas. But not one box did they secure for themselves. My young assistant and I were very vigilant. This done, I made up a little bag of things and set out for Saint Hilaire. It was not easy to get there, for the railways were over-busy carrying soldiers and material of war eastwards; but I arrived in time, as one always does—as one always does, my good Monsieur, if only one can endure.
"I need not worry you with any account of what happened at Saint Hilaire until the Germans came.
17
