Journey Into Fear by Eric Ambler Page B

Mathis. “We have been there three years. It was never any better than the day we arrived.”
    “The Turks are a great people,” said her husband. “They are hard and they endure. But we shall be gladto return to France. Do you come from London, Monsieur?”
    “No, the North of England. I have been in Turkey for a few weeks on business.”
    “To us, war will be strange after so many years. They say that the towns in France are darker than the last time.”
    “The towns are damnably dark both in France and in England. If you do not have to go out at night it is better to stay in.”
    “It is war,” said Mathis sententiously.
    “It is the filthy Bosche,” said his wife.
    “War,” put in Mr. Kuvetli, stroking an unshaven chin, “is a terrible thing. There is no doubt of it. But the Allies must win.”
    “The Bosche is strong,” said Mathis. “It is easy to say that the Allies must win, but they yet have the fighting to do. And do we yet know whom we are going to fight or where? There is a front in the East as well as in the West. We do not yet know the truth. When that is known the war will be over.”
    “It is not for us to ask questions,” said his wife.
    His lips twisted and in his brown eyes was the bitterness of years. “You are right. It is not for us to ask questions. And why? Because the only people who can give us the answers are the bankers and the politicians at the top, the boys with the shares in the big factories which make war materials. They will not give us answers. Why? Because they know that if the soldiers of France and England knew those answers they would not fight.”
    His wife reddened. “You are mad! Naturally the men of France would fight to defend us from the filthyBosche.” She glanced at Graham. “It is bad to say that France would not fight. We are not cowards.”
    “No, but neither are we fools.” He turned quickly to Graham. “Have you heard of Briey, Monsieur? From the mines of the Briey district comes ninety per cent. of France’s iron ore. In nineteen fourteen those mines were captured by the Germans, who worked them for the iron they needed. They worked them hard. They have admitted since that without the iron they mined at Briey they would have been finished in nineteen seventeen. Yes, they worked Briey hard. I, who was at Verdun, can tell you that. Night after night we watched the glare in the sky from the blast furnaces of Briey a few kilometres away; the blast furnaces that were feeding the German guns. Our artillery and our bombing aeroplanes could have blown those furnaces to pieces in a week. But our artillery remained silent; an airman who dropped one bomb on the Briey area was court-martialled. Why?” His voice rose. “I will tell you why, Monsieur. Because there were orders that Briey was not to be touched. Whose orders? Nobody knew. The orders came from someone at the top. The Ministry of War said that it was the generals. The generals said that it was the Ministry of War. We did not find out the facts until after the war. The orders had been issued by Monsieur de Wendel of the Comité des Forges who owned the Briey mines and blast furnaces. We were fighting for our lives, but our lives were less important than that the property of Monsieur de Wendel should be preserved to make fat profits. No, it is not good for those who fight to know too much. Speeches, yes! The truth, no!”
    His wife sniggered. “It is always the same. Let someone mention the war and he begins to talk about Briey—something that happened twenty-four years ago.”
    “And why not?” he demanded. “Things have not changed so much. Because we do not know about such things until after they have happened it does not mean that things like it are not happening now. When I think of war I think also of Briey and the glare of the blast furnaces in the sky to remind myself that I am an ordinary man who must not believe all that he is told. I see the newspapers from France with the blanks in