He has just come through his first fight, seemingly
with some credit to himself; and he is proud of the part he has played
and is pleased to talk about it. Of his own accord he volunteers to
lead us to the heights back of the town where the French defenses were
and where the hand-to-hand fighting took place.
As we trail along behind him in single file we pass a small paved court
before a stable and see a squad of French prisoners. Later we are to
see several thousand French prisoners; but now the sight is at once a
sensation and a novelty to us. These are all French prisoners; there
are no Belgians or Englishmen among them. In their long, cumbersome
blue coats and baggy red pants they are huddled down against a wall in a
heap of straw. They lie there silently, chewing straws and looking very
forlorn. Four German soldiers with fixed bayonets are guarding them.
The young lieutenant leads us along a steeply ascending road over a
ridge and then stops; and as we look about us the consciousness strikes
home to us, with almost the jar of a physical blow, that we are standing
where men have lately striven together and have fallen and died.
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