Evening star., 1939-10-08
BY ELIZABETH w. DODGE.

WI VI WV o'"U W ''~' 'S''oo'
paper.
BY ELIZABETH w. DODGE.
The 40 of us with the Delaware
foreign study group this year had
no sooner begun our classes at the
Institute de Touraine. when one
morning two of the girls bicycling to
school encountered parade of SOL
diers singing La Marseillaise. They
took to the sidewalk and tried to
push their bikes through the crowd
watching the parade, but were late
to school anyway. In the courtyard
of the institute soldiers were un-
packing crates. The ministry Of
propaganda had requisitioned the
building and was moving in the next
day.
On the way home I saw a man
with a glue pot pasting an afhche
labeled "Ordre de Mobilization Gen.
eral" That was the day we started
our course in evacuation. William
Bell of Washington and Arthur
Stabler, Loudoun County, Va, and
the other 10 men students collected
our As trunks from boarding houses
all over town and loaded them on
trucks. They were amateur trunk
movers then but they are profess
sionals now. There were three more
evacuations to come. 1t was on the
way to st. Nazaire, when our bus
driver stopped to ask directions, that
a man told us war was declared.
One night in ST. Nazarire Chris
tine Horn of Washington and I
unsuspectingly sat down to a three
hour dinner with the other girls
in the hotel We had just finished
the snails and the soup when two
unidentified airplanes appeared and
an alert sounded. Immediately all
the lights in the city were put out.
The waitress, whose husband had
just been modified, went into hys-
terics. She didn't come out of them
enough to turn on the lights until
half an hour after the "all clear"
siren. Mr.. Bell and Mr.. Stabler left
the hotel where the men of the
men of the group we're quartered
and went into the streets to see
what was going on, but it was so
black that Mr.. Bell was forced to
take refuge in cafe. Mr.. Stabler,
however, reached the Hotel de
Bretagne, where the majority of
the group was still at the dinner
table.
Saw English Troop Ships.
A few days later we left town
and went to San Brevin lOcean at
the mouth of the Loire. While we
were there troop ships were coming
into the Loire from England as
many as five at time, and ships
constantly going in and out of the
harbor. A sentry paced the beach
day and night. He ordered one of
the girls away from the fortif1ca-
tions in the sand dunes, when she
came in from swimming.
One morning when I went down
to swim, the sand and the ocean as
far as you could see out from shore
were mysteriously covered with oil.
Many jelly fish had died and were
WhoAlSo up AL 1lCoJoy o11O SOlllC uuCho
that lit on the water could not get
their wings free,- and died. OF all
the rumors heard, the most prob
able was that an oil tanker had been
torpedoed off the coast.
We and the children brought from
Paris were almost the only inhabi-
tants Of San Brevin because all the
summer people had gone away.
Every day retired school principal,
as full of vitality as Mr.. Chips, came
to teach us French. The last day
he read us the poetry of his dead
friend Peguy, the war poet, so
knowingly that one of the girls cried.
At last our director had word the
Manhattan was sailing, and obtained
our passage on it, and two buses
and truck and military permit to
go to Bordeaux. We started off with
boxes of sandwiches to try to get
there before dark, but on the way
the second bus, which 1 was in, ran
out of gas. We saw the first bus
full of students, who carried the
only map, disappear over the brow
of the hill. We could only wait until
our companions discovered we were
missing and came back. After dark
the sentries at every railroad cross
ing and bridge along the road
stopped us to inspect the permit.
We got lost in Bordeaux because it
was too black to see the street signs,
and then we had to wait for long
train of horses pulling army supplies
to pass. When at last, after a 12-
hour bus ride, with nothing to eat
for nine hours, our director reported
our arrival to the assistant consul,
the consul said:
Didn't you get my telegram not
to come? The Manhattan, isn't sail
ing for another week and all the
hotels in town are full"
The expression on our directors
face was such that Mr.. Stabler
laughed out loud.
Told to Keep Moving"
A few days later, in broad day.
light, Mr. Stabler stopped on the
big bridge in Bordeaux to admire
the river. Some one dug him in the
ribs as though he was trying to
tickle him. Mr.. Stabler turned,
thinking it was q friend. but It was