The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-10-28


 small states, but kills her own citizens, IS well as the soldiers of her enemies if she deems it convenient for her pur- away, occasional bangs one hears on a Fourth of July evening in America. Ger tainly no one was busy except the cooks.
 As we left a rifle shot rang out. Our officer informed us that the sound of a rifle was most unusual and we all stopped to listen. But there was no repetition. It must have been some sniper at work and that lonely shot reminded one vividly of the hours of vigil and waiting that must have pretceded it.
 The roads behind the front are in teresting enough we passed hun dreds of Chinamen working on the rough parts, companies of German prisoners likewise working or swing : ing by with their noncommissioned ed officers at their head. village full of billeted Portuguese, turbaned In dian cavalry, Scotchmen and English men by thousands, in fact almost all the peoples of the earth with the eX ception of the French themselves. Dur ing the days we were there, and in spite of the considerable distances we covered, we saw no French soldiers. There were old French men and wom en, few enough of them, working in lilC llSluS anu rTeIlCn WOIucIl anu CIlll- dren in the villages, but no soldiers. THE TRAIL OF THE HUN
 Later on that first day we saw more ruined villages, cemeteries in which French and Germans lay side by side, huge mine craters around which some of the fiercest fighting of the war had ragged for weeks, and a derelict tank, abandoned long since, rusting by the roadside ha1 ion oh roo far painted in faded white along one side. Perhaps it was built in England for Russia, though destined to die and rot in France.
 Most interesting of all was a little hill, not unlike that in Boston common, which used to figure almost daily in the communiques of both sides. It has been fenced in by the French and no one is allowed to remove or alter any thing. It stands on a vast stretch of
 bleak country where for miles and miles the ground is pitted with shell holes so close together they look like
 the smallpox marks on a mans face
 It's sides are still covered with every conceivable kind of debris Shrapnel cases, rotting caps and uniforms. leather cartridge holders, tin food cans.
 bayonets, broken rifles and wicker shell baskets lie jumbled together. While here and there the butt ends of huge .unexploded shells jut out of tie clay. This is what is on the surface, but down beneath mixed up with the caved-in dug-outs lie thousands of dead English soldiers and thousands of Germans.
 That hill was repeatedly taken and lost, retaken and lost again Around 1t seems to cling a concentration of the soulless bleakness which broods over all that dreadful flat part o. France Trees may grow again where now the blasted gray stumps sprout like dead mems fungus and the little hill just as 1t is for ever, that all
 who come may see it's bare, rubbish : strewn sides and feel the influence which surrounds it, mixture of roar ing, ear-splitting noise, sublime brav- cry, horror and waste.
 We saw the famous statute of the Virgin Mary with the child in her arms
 leaning out at right angles from her shattered church tower It seems incredi- ] ble she does not fall. As all the world | knows, legend has grown up in France ! that when she falls the war will end The English Tommy who acted as oul chauffeur informed us that British ,.n l gineers had recently wired her on so sht couldn't fall. Immediately afterwards hs
 remarked inconsistently that 1t was no | MI AHHAi SlioOtiiS lild was reSpOnSlO'S l for her present position, but the Frenc themselves who had purposely let he, down on hinge so she might presen less perfect mark for the German guns. Other Tommies afterwards con. l frmed this surprising story and it i evident the British, as well as tn, 1 French have their legends and belief about this romantic figure.
 1 The next day was comparatively un eventful for we motored much of tn time and only stopped to visit trainin. camps and hospitals. It was not unri the evening that anything unusua turned up. Two of us had been invited to another nearby visitors chateau Co dinner and there we found ourselves il the company of several labor men iron l industrial England. They had beer sent to see the war at close quarter so that they might know how importan | it was that labor should sink it's griev ances for the time being and concentrate
 every ounce of energy on turning oil
 munitions.
 THE WORKERS DISCOVERY They were not labor leaders but ordi nary machinists and skilled workmen What they. had experienced and seer had done it's work. One of them Ina, fired a big gun with his own hands One had gone into particularly no
 place in the trenches, though his corr panions had refused to go. We said t another What has particularly i'm pressed your" Well" he replied, ii is the first free trip have ever had ii my life" This caused general laugh ter. which fell, however. when he adde' seriously:
 The way I have been treated has i'm l pressed me more than anything hay | actually seen. For days l have gon about with men of class I have alway | disliked and suspected and instead q l finding my beliefs borne out I find l have been totally wrong. I have dis | covered that the so-called upper class l does not look down on us laboring meJ They are only too willing to meet us 0 an equal basis and in many ways the