“The greater number of the bodies,” writes a soldier, “still lie between the trenches, and we have been unable to withdraw them.  We can see them always, in frightful quantity, some of them intact, others torn to bits by the shells which continue to fall upon them.  The stench of this corruption floats down upon us with foul odours.  Bits of their rotting carcases are flung into our faces and over our heads as new shells burst and scatter them.  It is like living in a charnel house where devils are at play flinging dead men’s flesh at living men, with fiendish mockery.  The smell of this corruption taints our food, and taints our very souls, so that we are spiritually and physically sick.  That is war!” “This horrible game of war,” writes another man, “goes on passionately in our corner.  In seventy-four days we have progressed about 1200 yards.  That tells you everything.  Ground is gained, so to speak, by the inch, and we all know now how much it costs to get back a bit of free France.”

6

Along the French lines Death did not rest from his harvesting whatever the weather, and although for months there was no general advance on either side, not a day passed without new work for the surgeons, the stretcher-bearers, and the gravediggers.  One incident is typical of a hospital scene near the front.  It was told in a letter from a hospital nurse to a friend in Paris.

“About midday we received a wounded general, whom we made as comfortable as possible in a little room.  Although he suffered terribly, he would submit to no special care, and only thought of the comfort of two of his officers.  By an extraordinary chance a soldier of his own regiment was brought in a few moments later.  Joy of the general, who wanted to learn at once what had happened to his children.  He asked to see the soldier immediately: 

“‘Tell me—­the commandant?’

“‘Dead, mon general.’

“‘And the captain?’

“‘Dead, mon general.’

“Four times questions were asked, and four times the soldier, whose voice became lower, made his answer of death.  Then the general lowered his head and asked no more.  We saw the tears running down his scarred old face, and we crept out of the room on tip-toe.”

7

In spite of all this tragedy, the French soldier into whose soul it sank, and who will never forget, wrote home with a gaiety which gleamed through the sadness of his memories.  There was a new series of “Lettres de mon moulin” from a young officer of artillery keeping guard in an old mill-house in an important position at the front.  They were addressed to his “dearest mamma,” and, thoughtful of all the pretty hands which had been knitting garments for him, he described his endeavours to keep warm in them: 

“To-night I have piled on to my respectable body a flannel waistcoat, a flannel shirt, and a flannel belt going round three times, a jacket with sleeves sent by mamma herself, a leather waistcoat from Aunt Charlotte, a woollen vest which came to me from the unknown mother of a young dragoon, a warm undercoat recently received from my tailor, and a woollen jacket and wrap knitted by Madame P. J. So I prepare to sleep in peace, if the Boches will kindly allow me.”