There is no time wasted on him in the
brisk business of war; but his comrades bury him. One in particular
faithful at funerals I had learned to know--M. Le Doze. War itself is so
little the respecter of persons that this man had found himself of value
in paying the last small honor to the obscure dead as they were carried
from his Red Cross post to the burial-ground. One hopes that he will
receive no hasty trench burial when his own time comes.
I cannot write of the middle-aged man of the Belgians because he has
been killed. That first mixed army, which in thin line opposed its body
to an immense machine, was crushed by weight and momentum. Little is
left but a memory. But I shall not forget the veteran officer of the
first army, near Lokeren, who kept his men under cover while he ran out
into the middle of the road to see if the Uhlans were coming. The only
Belgian army today is an army of boys. Recently we had a letter from
Andre Simont, of the "Obusiers Lourdes, Beiges," and he wrote:
If you promise me you will come back for next summer, I won't get
pinked. If I ever do, it doesn't matter. I have had twenty years of
very happy life.
If he were forty-five, he would say, as a French officer at Coxyde said
to me:
"Four months, and I haven't heard from my wife and children. We had a
pleasant home. I was well to do. I miss the good wines of my cellar.
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