Beyond were the battlefields of the Somme
where every yard of ground is part of the great graveyard of our
youth.
So Amiens, as I have said, was not far away from the red heart of war,
and was clear enough to the lines to be crowded always with officers
and men who came out between one battle and another, and by "lorry-
jumping" could reach this city for a few hours of civilized life,
according to their views of civilization. To these men--boys, mostly--
who had been living in lousy ditches under hell fire, Amiens was
Paradise, with little hells for those who liked them. There were
hotels in which they could go get a bath, if they waited long enough
or had the luck to be early on the list. There were streets of shops
with plate-glass windows unbroken, shining, beautiful. There were
well-dressed women walking about, with kind eyes, and children as
dainty, some of them, as in High Street, Kensington, or Prince's
Street, Edinburgh. Young officers, who had plenty of money to spend--
because there was no chance of spending money between a row of blasted
trees and a ditch in which bits of dead men were plastered into the
parapet--invaded the shops and bought fancy soaps, razors, hair-oil,
stationery, pocketbooks, knives, flash-lamps, top-boots (at a fabulous
price), khaki shirts and collars, gramophone records, and the latest
set of Kirchner prints.
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