Energy books

In the village on the
marsh men fought at least against other men, and not against invisible
powers which belched forth death.
It was part of the French system of "keeping quiet" until the turn of
big offensives; a good system, to my mind, if not carried too far. At
Frise, next door to Vaux, in a loop of the Somme, it was carried a
little too far, with relaxed vigilance.
It was a joke of our soldiers to crawl on and through the reeds and
enter the French line and exchange souvenirs with the sentries.
"Souvenir!" said one of them one day. "Bullet--you know--cartouche.
Comprenny?"
A French poilu of Territorials, who had been dozing, sat up with a
grin and said, "Mais oui, mon vieux," and felt in his pouch for a
cartridge, and then in his pockets, and then in the magazine of the
rifle between his knees.
"Fini!" he said. "Tout fini, mon p'tit camarade."
The Germans one day made a pounce on Frise, that little village in the
loop of the Somme, and "pinched" every man of the French garrison.


Pages:
208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232