Soldier Silhouettes on Our Front

e hub-deep with mud, and sometimes when the roads were a glare of ice and

nother road led down toward divisional headquarters. Another road led into Toul, and a fourth led directly toward the German li

about directions. The divisional man said: "Go straight out the east gate of the city, down

frankly afraid, for I knew that a wrong turn would take

was impenetrably dark. When I came to the cross-roads I stopped the machine and climbed down. I wanted to make sure of

e Christ on the crucifix there at the crossroads guide-post. There was an inscription. Laboriously finding each

ou ever seen so gre

ng up No Man's Land. "Traveller, hast thou ever seen

the machine a

che planes, and they were bent on mischief. Then the search-lights began to play in the sky over me. But they were too late, for hardly had I started on my way

he phrase of the cross seemed to sing in unis

ou ever seen so gre

cy, and the front was calling them. I knew that something must be going on off toward the front lines, for the rumbling of the big guns had been going on for an hour. As these

a raid, when hundreds of our boys had been brought in every night and day, with four shifts of doctors kept busy day and night in the operating-room caring for them. As I though

full meaning swept over me there in the darkness of that night, the heartache and loneliness of the folks at

ou ever seen so gre

of the next morning, about two o'clock, I had to stop again

on me that this was Fr

ou ever seen so gre

age of France, ploughing the fields of France; doing the work of men because the men were all either killed or at the front; when I remembered the little fatherless children that I had seen all over France, whose sad eyes looked up into mine everywhere I went; and when I remembered the young widows (every woman of France seems to be in black); and when I remembered the thousands of blind men and boys that I had seen being led helplessly about the streets of the cities and

s, sisters of France, and England, and Belgium, this trav

early every boy who had passed it; and all had. Either he had read it himself or it had been quoted to him, and this one crucifix que

tchener sent into the trenches of France to stem the tide of inhumanity, and to whom he gave a message: "Go! Sacrifice yourselves while I raise an army in England!" The American soldier k

r, day after day, sends its reminder into the heart of the American soldiers, who stop their trucks and their ammunition wagons, pause their weary marches to read it; sends it

he drives by on his motor-truck, or as he flashes by on his motor-cycle, though they may be willing to suffer as France has suffered, if

to make him more gentle with French children and women, and more kindly with French men. There is a new understanding of each other, a new cement of

Its sin is being washed away. Innocent men

t Americans. News of the fight had been coming in to us all day long. Night came and "runners" were still bringing in the gruesome details. The ambulances were running in a continuous procession. We had seen things that day and night that made our hearts sick. We had seen

a front-line hut-boys who had been killed in their billet in one room. We had seen a captain come staggering into our hut wet to the skin, soaked with blood,

in the head. Then about ten o'clock I saw my second lieutenant fall. Then early in the afternoon my top-serg

ank God, we licked them! We licked them at their own game! We got them six to one, and drove them back! No M

s of his own off

this time. Now we've got to suffer! Then we'll know what it all mea

lights. Long before I got to it I could see the gaunt form of the cross reaching its black but comforting arms up against the background of lurid light along the

ica suffering together, a silhouette sta

he hearts of that whole division of American soldiers, that division which has since so distinguished itself at Belleau Woods!

ou ever seen so gre

e; we under