"
The officer thought this very likely. I felt extremely bitter about
it. The more I thought of it the more I was convinced that he was
exactly the sort of chauffeur who would get into a car and sit on an
only hat.
At last we came to the town--to what had been a town. It was a town no
longer. Walls without roofs, roofs almost without walls. Here and
there only a chimney standing of what had been a home; a street so
torn up by shells that walking was almost impossible--full of
shell-holes that had become graves. There were now no lights, not even
soldiers. In the silence our footsteps re-echoed against those
desolate and broken walls.
A day or two ago I happened on a description of this town, written by
a man who had seen it at the time I was there.
"The main street," he writes, "is like a great museum of prehistoric
fauna. The house roofs, denuded of tiles and the joists left naked,
have tilted forward on to the sidewalks, so that they hang in mid-air
like giant vertebrae.... One house only of the whole village of ----
had been spared."
We stumbled down the street toward the trenches and at last stopped
before a house. Through boards nailed across what had once been
windows a few rays of light escaped. There was no roof; a side wall
and an entire corner were gone. It was the residence of the ladies of
the decoration.
Pages:
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277