The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1919-01-04
ONLY CROWS
NOW FIGHT IN
FRENCH SKIES

BEHIND The LINES,
Dec. 80. - This land of recent
battles is a queer land now. Over
the shell-torn villages and blast
ed woods, the pitted fields and the
ruin of all that M was, is a
strange quiet. The winter sky is
lacking in airplanes and great
flocks of crows have taken their
place.
A few villagers have crept back
to see what remains of their homes
and holdings, but they are few,
and probably the winter will have
passed before reclamation and re-
construction are undertaken on a
large scale.
Along the roads repaired and re-
bridged for the allies advance
into German territory long canton
trains move slowly and always
southwark. They travel %leisurely
now, for the need of hurry is gone.
They bring back the salvage of
battlefields, all the things that go
to make war, abandoned or cap
tured.
Truck load after truck load of
rifles and shells, of water bottles
and haversacks cartridges, ma
chine guns, bayonets and trench
knives and pistols, mess kits, over
coats, caps and an endless catalogue
of paraphernalia are brought in.
The battle zone is still full of 1t
all, in heaps and racks, waiting
salvage.
Now and then some trains of
airplane camions, burdened with
dismantled flying machines of
every type and every nation, en-
CINE and fusilage and running gear
on the truck and the great wings
on its specially designed trailer.
Some of them r unframed, but
many show bullet holes through
the frail fabric or the ruins of a
crash. A fair proportion of them
bear the Maltese cross that marks
them Boche.
There are trains of captured en-
envy artillery, particularly of mo-
tor batteries, driven and manned
by Frenchmen, and these are hap
ply outfits. Often the guns are
decorated with evergreens and al
ways the French soldiers laugh
and wave a greeting. AS they
creep through the villages the pop
ulace flocks out to view the can
non that for four years sent death
and devastation to their land, and
the children clambor on the car
riages and out or the grim barrels.
But it is the troops on the way
back that are most interesting, re-
turning to rest areas or to their
ports of embarkation for home.
French or American, their behav-
ior is the same. Always they are
laughing or singing, always they
greet everyone cheerily or bolster
ously and always the French Off
GERS salute with a smile when they
meet an American cal, while the
men wave and shout LA guerre
est finis' or a similar greeting.
Even the children cry "finis, fms"
to the passing car.
Strangest of all r the lights
at night, in the hamlets and viii
lagos or shining friendly from the
isolated farm house, in regions
further back. For so long France
seemed a deserted land to the trav-
eler by night. Hour after hour
the Associated Press correspondent
has travelled at night without a
glimmer to be seen in the country
side, and o from every hill and
vale the CHEEKY windows shine and
the villages are ablaze.
The papers devote columns to
the illumination of Paris, but it is
here in the remote part of France
where the war has been, that
lights at night seem most wonder
full. even if they are but candles
or little lamps. Where once cam
ions of staff cars doomed lightless
in the roads to the imminent
threat of collision, and often its
accomplishment, the brilliant head
lights stab the night.