South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1916-02-24


calm. the general had authorized me to
take an auto for three four hours and
20 in search Of the grave Of one Of my nephews
who had been killed by a shell during our
offensive in September.
Incomplete information had appraised me that
be might be in a soldiers cemetery improvised
the day after battle five OF six hundred yards
away from the small town of T. whose
ruins, still bombarded every day and growing
more and more shapeess, lie at the limit OF
the French zone quite near the German
trenches. / did not know how he had been
buried. Did he lie in a common trench or per.
haps under a little cross bearing his name,
which would permit US to come later to carry
him away?
To 90 to T" the general told me, make
detOur through the village OF b; that is
the way you viii run the least risk OF being
marked by the German artillery At B. il
tie conditions Of your journey appear danger.
Gus. a sentinel will stop you there according TO
rule. Then you will hide your auto behind a
wall and you may continue your journey on
foot-with the customary precautions, it is
understood"
My faithful servant, Osman, who had shared
my adventures In every country for twenty
years and who is a soldier now, like everybody
else. a territorial soldier had had a cousin
Killed In the same battle my nephew. and
buried. they to- him, in the same cemetery:
he therefore obtained the authorization to
accompany me in my piOus search.
To-day everything is powdered with boar
frost In the sinister countryside over which
hangs an icy fog: at sixty yards in front one
can distinguish nothing. and the trees which
hne the roadsides fade away lost in the i'm
mense white shrOuds.
After a run OF half an hour we enter COM
pletely into the gehenna of the front TO which
when one has grown accustomed to it one
longer pays any attention, but which on the
carrier occasions was so impressive and which
later VIII seem so strange TO look back on
All the figures that ride on these enormous
rolling machines breathe health and decision
We see among them our own soldiers now
wearing the helmet of blush steel which recalls
the ancient "bOurgugnotte" and takes us back
to the Middle Ages there are yellow-bearded
Russians. dark-sknned Hindoos and BedoUins
al these men march and march. carrying piles
Of fantastic objects, and there are also horses
by the thousands threading their way between
the innumerable big wheels. Indeed one might
believe oneself at the epoch Of a general migra
ton OF humanity after some CataClysm that
had changed the surface of the earth. But it
Is not that, 1t is simply the work of the great
tccCrsed one who has unloosed German bar
barism; he had spent forty years in preparing
the monstrOus stroke which. according to his
calculations, TO lead to the apotheosis OF
his mad pride but which viii only lead TO
his fall In a sea Of blood amid universal loath-
ing.
A moment Of hesitation do not see any
OF the signs which are customary at the points
where one must stop. nor the usual little red
flag, nor the tree branch stuck in the earth. nor
the warning sentinel raising his rifle with both
hands above his head; the road is therefore
considered to be passable today; and when l
ask il IL leads all the way to = the sous
officers" who are about, simply answer, with
the military salute, Yes. commandment" and
co not appear surprised that / am going there.
Then we have only to keep on our way. sim
ply taking the precaution not TO so too quickly.
fl order TO avoid making much noise.
Simply from the silence in which we are
plunged now, simply from the solitude, should
recognize that the extreme front;
for 1t is one OF the strange features of the new
war that always the tragic zone bordering on
the burrows of the barbarians has the aspect
Of desert; one sees no one there, everything
Is hidden buried. and. except the days when