Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-10-14
BY PHILIP GIBBS
Contipued from Paec One

Continued from Pare One
to get away. but we said: We will
wait for the English though we die !"
The girl thrust an arm through her
shawl ard the emotion OF all that she
had seen and suffered made her white
face flame.
I'VE Shall BE Free Again"
"Oh, the dirty brutes!" she said, and
she laughed with queer mirth and said:
"They are getting punished now, II
was very funny a week ago. The Eng
lish will never get to lie Cateau,' they
| said. and l said, Wait n Bit They
won't get Cambria they said. be-
cause we are killing them in heaps,
but said. Soon II will be your turn
to die Then few days ago they
became scared and had a big fright.
The high officers went away In hurry
and I waved my hands as they passed
and said. 1t is time TO go. my fine
devils, eh?' Then the commandants
rushed off with their paper and I
laughed to see them and then the
sergeant major went and the sergeants
and signal men and / knew the Eng
lish were after them, and In our eel
lars when the shelling began we wait
ed and listened and said: The devils
have gone, and we shall be free
again."
The girl and the women around her
broke into passionate words, their
breath steaming in the wet mist and
every word was a flame of hatred Tor
the enemy, in whose hands they had
been for four years. And then tney
went a little at the remembrance OF
that misery.
without Food -Four Days
went later In the day to Bohain'
still on the edge of the fighting lines
and there in that town, an ugly manu-
featuring town hardly touched by hre'
though the enemy had just begun TO
shell and gas It, / saw what war means
to non-combatants in the enemy
hands: what 1t means for women ana
children to be half starved four years
and quite starved for four days. anu
what It means to all that vast popula-
ton of French. people who are on the
other side of the German lines
The approach to Bohain was sinister
There was a loud noise of gunfre close
behind a thick curtain of mist. Many
dead horses lay along the road' win
broken guns and gun limbers. There
were new shell pits on each side of the
road and the Germans had blown UP
deep craters on the highway.
| 1t had been an immense German juno
ton for detraining troops ana stores
and / passed over six broad gauge lines
and vast sid.ngs. They had had ord
nance stores here and ammuniticil
dumps. but had cleared away most OF
their material and had blown up what
| they could not save, so that tnere was
wild liter of twisted iron ana wreck
age of sheds and trains.
A long street struggled past mean
houses in the center Of the town. where
there were factories and big warehouses
and a tall, red. brick church. 1t was
in this long street of factory chimneys
| that | met first n group Of civilians
though / had seen women and children
through cottage windows and standing
| in their doorways, and was startled by
their starving looks and the waxen
pallor of their faces.
Three men came and spoke to me
one a handsome mddle-aged man with
a spade beard and distinguished way
of speech. the second. little old gnome-
like man OF seventy or so. and the third
a tall man with a short black beard and
high cheek-bones and queer light In
his eyes. 1t was the man with the spade
| beard who spoke first and fastest. Ht
| took my hand and said:
"You are an English soldier. Como
and see what the Germans have done IL
l Bohain Go round these streets ant
sneak to our women. Go to our towr
hail. which cost great sums of money
and see how, before they left, they blew
1t up and burned 1t to the ground. &C
to our factories. which were filled witt
machinery. by which our people earned
their bread before the war, and yot
will see that they have left nothing, not
one bar of iron. not one little wheel
nothing nothing! Tell your soldiers
and your people that the Germans are
devils, bandits. brigands, pigs and brutes
and tell them how they made your pris-
oners suffer. how they starved them Sc
that they dropped dead as they walked.
Prisoners Starved to Death
He pointed to a little field through q
gap in the red brick houses and said:
These are graves of English soldiers
who starved to death In Bohain."
He pointed to a doorway close to ui
and said:
| "Outside that house I saw one of you
men drop down dead from hunger
The two other men spoke. They sait
the same kind of thlngs, but Inherently
One was the little old man with quie
voice, which broke now and then as nj
eyes filed with tears. like child Il
/, misery the other the bearded maj
with hoarse, weak voice and that quee
sad look in his eyes.
"Oh. my dear STR" said the little oil
man, 'the suffering of your Englis
soldiers was very bad. They came In s
strong and big. and we watched ther
. | gradually weaken until they were &c
. weak TO stand and they were just livin
skeletons. Our women died to CIV
them food. though they had not enoug
themselves. and were struck and hnt
and put in prison for sparing a litt
Of their bread
Ia I spoke to some girls standing in
doorway. pretty girls and very neat an
clean, but with that dreadful wake
10 pallor which belongs to all the people
II Bohain. They laughed and wept as th'
Il talked to me, and both their Taught
g and their tears came from weaksess, b
4, because they had had no food. not ev'
d one little bit Of bread for several day
ID and were starving.
Still they told me that the Germai
IS had shelled Bohain just before / can
I'd in and had killed one girl and a ma
IN and that the night before they HI
fired gas shells and poisoned four peoI
so that they had died. They asked I
IL thought il was wise of them
stay. and I said:
mo, II is not wise. it is very DANCE
ic Gus until we drive the enemy farth
back"
Destroyed Stock of Medicine
M These girls and other women tn
MS told me how the Germans had blown