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Cobb, Irvin S. (Irvin Shrewsbury), 1876-1944

"Paths of Glory Impressions of War Written at and Near the Front"

I read two of the names--
Werner was one, Vogel was the other. Somehow I felt an acuter personal
interest in Vogel and Werner than in the other five whose names I could
not read.
Wherever we stopped in Belgium or in France or in Germany these
soldiers' funerals were things of daily, almost of hourly occurrence.
And in Maubeuge on this evening, even though dusk had fallen, two of the
inevitable yellow boxes, mounted upon a two-wheeled cart, were going to
the burying ground. We figured the cemetery men would fill the graves
by lantern light; and knowing something of their hours of employment we
imagined that with this job disposed of they would probably turn to and
dig graves by night, making them ready against the needs of the
following morning. The new graves always were ready. They were made in
advance, and still there were rarely enough of them, no matter how long
or how hard the diggers kept at their work. At Aix-la-Chapelle, for
example, in the principal cemetery the sexton's men dug twenty new
graves every morning.


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