The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-09-13
Rudyard Kipling at Rheims.

oA,ht ~ ~ VII
scribed the desolation of Rheims in
was to get those factory chimneys
smoking again
They were doing so in the little flats
and villages.
"You won't see any girls because
they're at work on textile fabrics. Yes,
1t isn't a bad country for summer
hotels. hut I'm afraid 1t won't do for
winter sports. We've only a meter Of
snow. and it doesn't lie except when
YOU are hauling guns up h noun
tains. Then, of course II drifts n
freezes like at Davos. There's our
new railway below there. Pity it's too
misty to see the View
But for his medals there was moth
ing in the Governor to show that he
was not English. He might have
come straight from an Indian frontier
command. One notices this approx
nation Of type in the higher ranks,
and many of the juniors are cut Of
the same cloth as ours. They got
whatever fun may be going. Their
performances are as incredible n
outrageous as the language i'm which
they describe them afterward Ia bold
but convincing.
I overheard the tail end NJ a yarn
told by n child of 20 to some other
babes. Ii was yelled in the obscurity
OF the French tongue and the points
were lost i'm shouts of laughter. but
I imagine the subaltern among his
equals displays Just as much rever-
ence for his elders and betters as
our boys do. The epilogue was as
old as both armies.
And what did he say then? oh,
the usual thing. lie held his breath
till I thought he'd burst, then he
damned me in heaps. and I took good
care TO keep out of his sight till next
day"
But officially and in the high social
atmosphere of headquarters their man
ners and their meekness are OF the
most admirable. There they attend
devoutly on the wisdom Of their sem
iors. who treat them. so It seemed
! with affectionate confidence.
The Front That Never sleeps.
When the days reports are in all
along the front there is "A a an eN-
pert in the meaning of things who
boils them down for that cold official
digest which tells us that "there was
the usual grenade fighting at --;
We made an appreciate advance al
-" &c.
The original material comes in
sheaves and sheaves where individ-
ual character and temperament have
full and amusing play. 1t il reduced
for domestic consumption like al
overwhelming electric current: other
wise we could not take IL in. Blu
at closer range. say at any genera.
headquarters. one realizes that tho
front never sleeps, never ceases from
trying new ideas and weapons, which
as soon as the boche thinks he has
mastered them are discarded for still
newer annoyances and bewilderments
1.-The boche IL above all things oh,
servant and initiative" said one VIII,
had counted 5000 bochcs lead il
front OF his sector.
When you present him with a new
idea he thinks it V g for a day oI
two. then he presents his iipOStC
yes, mon General. that was eXactl,
what he did to me when | did so anC
so. He was quite silent for a day
then he stole my patent. and you ant
I had a notion that he would do that
so | had changed the specifications"
Tins smoke the staff. and so II #
amony tho iunior commands down I,
IN semI-isoIated nosts whore ho,
-,
urbe,ievnble adventures They ar,
invontive ynunp devils those veteran,
o. 81 nnsye.sod or . single idea-to xii
nhiah ,hoy foIIowed ont wr,h mon a
[ ntnlo, 49, ,homso,,os po,,ta
an ,o'ios so No, axist whon , wboI,