Soldier Silhouettes on Our Front

rom Amiens. There were two thousand of them in one basement room of the Gare du Nord. They had no

efore it came time for the Germans to open their second big Somme drive, they had driven these women

s of France without food, many of them carrying little babi

oll, somehow you could not see for the mists in your eyes as you walked up and down the narrow aisles of that crowded basement pouring out chocolate and handing out food. The things you saw every minute in that roo

inst her breast asleep. She looked like an educated, cultured woman. Her features were beautiful, but she looked as if she had passed through death and hell in suffering. I asked her several times as I passed by if she wouldn't have some food

e looked up into my face and said: "Très fatiguée, monsieur!

had hastily gathered some clothes together. The baby was lying in its crib. Her other child, a little six-year-old girl, had gone out into the front of the home watching for the truck that was to gather up the village people. A bomb fell from a German Gotha and killed t

No wonder you were fatigued, mother heart. You had a right to be, weary unto death

ver been away from home in their lives before; most of them boys who have never crossed the ocean before, they will judge fairly and understand better the loneliness of the American soldier. It is not a

d to me one night as I stood in a Y. M. C. A. hut. He was about the loneliest boy I

a smile. Then we both laughed and sat down to some chocolate, a

ood deal of the time and had just come from an appendix operation. He was depressed in spirits, and his

heading of "Suffering" had better look into the face of

h soldier is fighting on his own native soil, but the American is fighti

e, write, write to your soldier in France. He would rather have letters than candy, or cigarettes, or presents of any kind, as much as he loves some of these material things. I have put it to a vote dozens of times, and the result is always the sam

I haven't received a letter in five months!" a

no mother

less; they always were

he tragedy of it was that both of us knew there was no good excuse. It was the most pitiable case I saw in France. God pity the careless mother or sister or father or friend who isn't willing to take the time an

s Sw

ore L

in their souls. A censor friend of mine said to me one day: "If you ever get a chance when you go home to urge the people of Amer

he censor as utterly devoid of humanitarian impulses, just a sort of a machine to slice out the really interesting things in your

often feel like adding a sentence to some letters myself going home, telling them they ought to be ashamed the way they treat their boys about letter-writing; but the rules are so stringent that I must neither add to nor take from a lett

when I asked how it was that he kept so clea

ad fifty wounds in his back, and he had them dressed without a single cry. I have seen them gassed, and I have seen them shot to pieces with shell shock, and yet the worst suffering I have seen in France has been on the part of boys whose folks back home have neglected them; boys who,

general cause of suffering in addition to the above is loneliness in the h

ed eight days. Instead of going to the theatres he sat around in our officers' hotel lobby and watched the women walking about, the Y. M. C. A. girls who were the hostesses there. They noticed him

w how to talk to women. Especially now, for I've been up in the woods for six months. Just

e, just loafing around in that hotel l

f my life," a major said to me on

, ma

pulled out the picture of a seven-

ithin the province of the folks at home to alleviate this suffering. I have seen a boy morose and surly, discouraged and grouchy in the morning.

ference? He had

as the difference? He

these sombre silhouettes stand out against a lurid background of

nd on his body anywhere, the doctors told me in the hospital. He did not know it as yet. He thought it wa

and when I talked with the lad I could look straight into his eyes. Those eyes I shall n

r." For once I didn't say anything about being

nted to see a real, honest-to-goodness preacher

proud of it," I replied, smi

eg doesn't seem to get any better. It pains all the time until I think I'll die with the

him. "They all tell me th

s so that I had to bend to hear them. "But my

e would likely not get well. Then I tried to tell him of the room in his Father's house that w

can feel his hand-clasp yet. I didn't know what to say, but a phras

rist to help you bear

u came-an honest-to-goodness preacher," and he smiled again, so bravely, in s

other wounded boys, but in the twilight I doubt if a lad there knew what we were doing. I

I feel stronger. He is helping me bear my burden. Thank you for co

ffering among our soldiers, too, but