Evening star., 1918-05-26
SCENES
BEHIND THE FRONT
American Regiment in Quiet
French Village Awaiting
Call to Battle.
AIRMAM A WAR REMINDER
BY HERBERT COREY.

BY HERBERT COREY.
JUST BEHIND THE soMME
FRONT. April 22.-After two days of
hiking we have reached another town.
Now the guns sound so near the
window panes almost rattle and the
night sky is lighted by the flares from
the firing line. We did no. come
straight toward the front from our
last camp. but progressed in a line
roughly parallel to il. The regiment
is being held ready for action. It
may be sent in at one of half a dozen
different points. This town is a good
Jumping-of place.
Except for the guns and the air.
planes one would not think this pleas.
ant country is so near the tidal line
OF war. The fields are well culti-
waited, the gardens are fourishing, the
horses are huge and kittenish. and
the cows are fat.
In the back of ones mind remains
consciousness of that unceasInR
humping over yonder. but SUPER
ncialiy the land presents the aspect
OF a country at peace.
Lack Of Young Men.
III one stops to think. OF course. one
sees that the fields are being worked
by old men and by the women. To.
day a one-legged man drove a team
OF TWO cows and a donkey to the work
OF ploughing. The broad slopes are
pared here and there by savage
bands of wire. Across the lush bot.
toms may be traced the half over
grown lines of trenches, long pre-.
pared against a possibility the kind
world hopes may never come.
ana mere are always the airplanes
1 90 not Know how many aviation
nelds there may be near here-I only
know OF three. but there must be
otners. Tor at dawn and dusk the sky
Is hlled with these birds of battle
put 1 am told they are scattered bout
oehind the cover Of wooded hills in
many a level prairie. 1t is not an
exaggeration to say that at times the
sky is filled with the fiiers. They
wheel to and fro in unending eyolu-
tions like swallows over a BARNARD.
or like great fish playing in a tank OF
illimitable blue. Sometimes they seem
to miss each other by inches only.
Always. between parades and inspec-
tons and close-order drills and the
other exercises that keep soldiers
from getting lonely. the streets are
lined with neck-tired Americans in
khaki all gazing up.
Greatest Show on Earth.
1t is not that the exploits of the
nying men are new to them any more,
but that the show is perhaps the most
marvellous ever seen on earth. The
French Inhabitants of these parts.
weary and saddened and resentful
after almost four years of war, Join
the strangers in the sky-gazing. One
can see their tired faces light I'D as
one after another their aerial de-
tenders do their incredible stunts in
the upper air. One man almost few
in my bedroom window as the sun
was rising this morning. Another
seems to use the pointed steeple OF
the little old cruciform church as his
target and darts and strikes at 1t un-
tiringly for an hour at a time. always
sheering Off just when it seems that
he must be impaled.
1 have been in many aerial areas
during this war. but nowhere have
seen flying by SO many virtuosos as
one sees here. No one bothers to look
at flyer who merely loops the loop
hereabouts. 1t is understood that he
is only a pupil. or perhaps master
hour Of vivid life he is soon to find
twenty kilometers-ten minutes-dis-
tant from his homing place. The
others slip sideways or do backward
dives or come down I'm the breath
stopping vrilles-the f1utter Of kill
the antagonist into believing that the
flyer has a mortal hurt-and ever and
ever pivot on wing tips ,or dart at each
other like sparrow hawks. The simu-
lation is that of true'fight in the air,
but il either were to lose control Of
nerve or muscle for the fraction OF a
second two planes would crash, so
close is the play.
Airmen Fly With Crows.
Hardly does the sun get above the
horizon than one hears the deep hum
ming of their engines. Some have the
true organ note in certain winds
and others thrash and grind through
the air angrily. and still others are
seem to float almost motionless In
the pearly blue. The great black
crows OF France select this hour for
their morning flight. too, and at
distinguishable from the others when
the crows are nearer and In the eye
OF the sun. The fighting men swoop
and dive for a moment and then are
off for their work of death. The
others rise and descend in ever-chang-
comes from the front. and one sees
long strings wheel away like wild
geese for a distant haven At night.
too. they come winging back. and
sees a bomb flash high in air and
then the landing lights flare up on
the flying fields for the homecomers
Refugees Pathetic Figures.
There is another sign, too. that this
land is not as peaceful as one would
think when one but views the dano-
ing horses, and the great white oxen
and the self-centered ducks that wad-
die eternally across the roads from
the noisome pools that abound In
every village. At times one sees
wagons on the roads. piled high with
the movable effects of those who have
been driven from their homes by war.
The men-always old, or crippled or
too young-are silent and morose.
The women do not weep. but sit high
throned among their pathetic goods.
packed in with the feather pillows
and the deep carven wooden beds anu
holding babies in their patient arms,
and stare forward toward future
that must seem compact of misery.
Now and then it is little cart, drawn
BY one or more of the great dogs of
Flanders, perhaps aided by man or
boy. 1t is when the American SOL
iiers see such as these that they rea-
ize what the German has done.
oNE PHOTO PER SECOND