So it was in other
places. Yet not all the horror had passed. In Courtrai, in St.-Amand
by Valenciennes, in Bohain, and other villages, the enemy's shell-fire
and poison-gas killed and injured many of the people who had been
under the German yoke so long and now thought they were safe.
Hospitals were filled with women gasping for breath, with gas-fumes in
their lungs, and with dying children. In Valenciennes the cellars were
flooded when I walked there on its day of capture, so that when shells
began to fall the people could not go down to shelter. Some of them
did not try to go down. At an open window sat an old veteran of 1870
with his medal on his breast, and with his daughter and granddaughter
on each side of his chair. He called out, "Merci! Merci!" when English
soldiers passed, and when I stopped a moment clasped my hands through
the window and could not speak for the tears which fell down his white
and withered cheeks. A few dead Germans lay about the streets, and in
Maubeuge on the day before the armistice I saw the last dead German of
the war in that part of the line.
Pages:
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882