The Bridgeport times and evening farmer. (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1918-1924, 1918-01-23


are like Jumps Of mortar
carry on their shoulders. Their
blankets rolled bandolier fashion,
make you think of Old Undiscovered
tires abandoned alongside roads.
From their boards and their mus
taches stalactites depend, and from
under their visors of mud the glances
of wolves look out. Slaves in their
mud-gloved hands, in the fashion of
primitive men, they tramp heroically
along, all of a piece under their cara
PAGES, disdainfully making the mud
cast up by their heavily clodded feet
bespatter the civilians who watcn
them pass. Scales fall from their
overcoats at each stride.
Under the coating of mud, all wear
the new~'horizon blue" uniform, turn
ed green by wear. That greenish tint.
which appears here and there on their
breasts through the cracks in the
mud, gives me the illusion that they
wear the oxydized cuirasses, eaten by
verdigris,- with which are clad the
ancient Gaulish chiefs exhumed by
the Psychologists in the sepulchres IN
der the walls of old Alesia.
All! If these soldiers, just as they
leave the trenches in Champagne, clad
in that French soil which they are
heroically defending, could defle,
some glorious Spring day, along the
Champs Elysees! What delirium!
How we would kiss the prints of their
muddy feet!
One might believe he saw passing,
descended from the Arc de Triomphe,
the regiments in stone of the Grand
Army, while above these legions of
statues on the march would fly Rudes
immortal "Marseillaise."
At last we arrived at X, a
peaceful village on which has des-
cended an enormous swarm of poilus
who cover it with their blush stirring.
The civil element has been totally alb
sorbed by the military. Some in
significant ''pekins" show here and
there, but they are drowned in the
c. owd of poilus.
One sees only poilus, blush poilus,
grayish poilus, greenish poilus faded
poilus, They go, come, enter and
leave the houses, busy themselves with
their little businesses, inundate the
streets with their discolored flood.
Some, in the open air, conduct a
gypsy cookery, some clean their rifles,
wash their clothing, their bodies and
their feet; others play at dice or cards,
or write letters. In all the windows,
groups of rollicking poilus; before all
the doors, poilus lounging in their sus-
penders, wearing slippers or sabots,
quite at their ease in their unbuttoned
overcoats, which are ample as both
robes.
That was never seen before, a town
peopled solely by soldiers. 1t is Poilu-
vile. 1t ought to have a poilu mayor,
a poilu cure, a poilu notary, poilu fire.
men.
Only-there are no lady poilus. This
is a city of men. The word poilu has
no feminine form. A pity-for the
race of poilus is mighty!
The little shops with their modest
dusty windows-the hardware store
the deIicatessen store, the BARRIERS
the little postoffice, the little Com
merce" cafe, the little Hotel of the
w 111l0 I1OASSy oil 11O 1ufduSO, taken
by assault. o! the poor little Govern
ment tobacco shop, big as a. postage
stamp, and its little manager who is
worried to madness. not knowing
whom to answer among the SO poiIus,
boisterous with joviality, who are
arguing over Is unfortunate one-cent
cigars and IL postcards covered with
fly .specks!
And, in moments when the uproar
dies down, indistinst distant cannon
shots brought by the wind.
| Toward evening I leave the train at
Barbecue station. After din
ner I go for a walk in the country
outside town. In the distance, always
the bass voices of cannon, an i'm
mense low rumbling which becomes a
sort of silence, so continuous is it
and so deadened.
But here is another sound, peculiar
nearer, kind of interrupted hum
ming. The impression it makes is
! strange. You might call it a power.
full respiration, monstrous pant I
do not at first know whence it comes.
| I look UPS it the droning of {
dirigible or a squadron of airplanes
| No, it comes from the ground, i
creeps and 1engthens out like a Ions
sonorous ribbon, a chenille of sount
| which traverses the plain, travels
Ealong the road and goes on more feeb
| ly to die away in a murmur which
stretches out toward the east.
i I go nearer. In the damp ant
stormy darkness I discover, or divine
an unbroken procession of monster
with round backs, with the heavy gal
of mammoths; following each othe
across the plain.
I seem to be seeing the migration
of a herd of antedtluvian beasts goin
} so, without hurry, one behind the 9th
| er, toward I know not what mysteriou
destination. I see indistinctly, in tn
) night, the outline of their vast backs
the folds of their loose and seal
skins, which hang over their swoIle
. sides and are inflated by their asth
matte breathing. I see their enorm
: Gus heads of which the little eye
5 shine feeb1y with a blinking fire
| 1 am beside the high road Thes
: are the camions, the motor trucks o
l Verdun, made deformed and fantasti
by the tragic night through whic
5 they slide.
: Some of them, seen from behind
t have the shape of elephants; thei
5 backs and tanks, these are the i'm
!, mense hoops on which badly stretch
Y ed, float and fly the spacious cloth
: of the somber tarpaulins which cove
9 | the loads And that whole carcass i
movement seems alive, moves heavil