France at War | Page 3

in that ditch--and
you'll find the same work going on everywhere. It isn't war."
"It's better than that," said another. "It's the eating-up of a people. They
come and they fill the trenches and they die, and they die; and they
send more and those die. We do the same, of course, but--look!"
He pointed to the large deliberate smoke-heads renewing themselves
along that yellowed beach. "That is the frontier of civilization. They
have all civilization against them --those brutes yonder. It's not the
local victories of the old wars that we're after. It's the barbarian--all the
barbarian. Now, you've seen the whole thing in little. Come and look at
our children."
SOLDIERS IN CAVES
We left that tall tree whose fruits are death ripened and distributed at
the tingle of small bells. The observer returned to his maps and
calculations; the telephone-boy stiffened up beside his exchange as the

amateurs went out of his life. Some one called down through the
branches to ask who was attending to--Belial, let us say, for I could not
catch the gun's name. It seemed to belong to that terrific new voice
which had lifted itself for the second or third time. It appeared from the
reply that if Belial talked too long he would be dealt with from another
point miles away.
The troops we came down to see were at rest in a chain of caves which
had begun life as quarries and had been fitted up by the army for its
own uses. There were underground corridors, ante-chambers, rotundas,
and ventilating shafts with a bewildering play of cross lights, so that
wherever you looked you saw Goya's pictures of men-at-arms.
Every soldier has some of the old maid in him, and rejoices in all the
gadgets and devices of his own invention. Death and wounding come
by nature, but to lie dry, sleep soft, and keep yourself clean by
forethought and contrivance is art, and in all things the Frenchman is
gloriously an artist.
Moreover, the French officers seem as mother-keen on their men as
their men are brother-fond of them. Maybe the possessive form of
address: "Mon general," "mon capitaine," helps the idea, which our
men cloke in other and curter phrases. And those soldiers, like ours,
had been welded for months in one furnace. As an officer said: "Half
our orders now need not be given. Experience makes us think
together." I believe, too, that if a French private has an idea--and they
are full of ideas--it reaches his C. 0. quicker than it does with us.
THE SENTINEL HOUNDS
The overwhelming impression was the brilliant health and vitality of
these men and the quality of their breeding. They bore themselves with
swing and rampant delight in life, while their voices as they talked in
the side-caverns among the stands of arms were the controlled voices of
civilization. Yet, as the lights pierced the gloom they looked like
bandits dividing the spoil. One picture, though far from war, stays with
me. A perfectly built, dark-skinned young giant had peeled himself out
of his blue coat and had brought it down with a swish upon the

shoulder of a half-stripped comrade who was kneeling at his feet with
some footgear. They stood against a background of semi-luminous blue
haze, through which glimmered a pile of coppery straw half covered by
a red blanket. By divine accident of light and pose it St. Martin giving
his cloak to the beggar. There were scores of pictures in these
galleries--notably a rock-hewn chapel where the red of the cross on the
rough canvas altar-cloth glowed like a ruby. Further inside the caves
we found a row of little rock-cut kennels, each inhabited by one wise,
silent dog. Their duties begin in at night with the sentinels and
listening-posts. "And believe me," a proud instructor, "my fellow here
knows the difference between the noise of our shells and the Boche
shells."
When we came out into the open again there were good opportunities
for this study. Voices and wings met and passed in the air, and, perhaps,
one strong young tree had not been bending quite so far across the
picturesque park-drive when we first went that way.
"Oh, yes," said an officer, "shells have to fall somewhere, and," he
added with fine toleration, "it is, after all, against us that the Boche
directs them. But come you and look at my dug-out. It's the most
superior of all possible dug-outs."
"No. Come and look at our mess. It's the Ritz of these parts." And they
joyously told how they had got, or procured, the various fittings and
elegancies, while hands stretched out of the gloom to shake, and men
nodded welcome and greeting all through that cheery brotherhood in
the woods.
WORK IN THE