Three hours’ rest, and then again forward! At noon, a farm. Halt! Georges was one of the three who went forward, dodging from wall to wall, to reconnoiter. There seemed to be some secret hidden there—the roof was blown off, the windows smashed, devastation everywhere about—but it might still conceal some desperate foe. As he approached the closed door, he saw a stain on the stone step, where a little dark stream of something had dried. He pushed open the door—butchery! More than two hundred Germans who had taken refuge there had found appalling death when two howitzer shells had converted them into an incredible mass of mere bleeding flesh. No fear now need any Frenchman have of those grim Germans—save only the fear of infection. Georges flung back the door and fled.
Could he find worse horrors? Let him tell.
“On Friday, after we had been relieved, we were held in reserve in the rear, and detailed to pick up the German deserters and waifs that were hiding in the woods all over the country. They were a sorry enough lot, frightened to death at first, when they threw up their hands at sight of us, but glad enough to be made prisoners and not have to work, when they found they were not going to be killed. After the wanton destruction of innocent villages we had seen—they had even destroyed the fire engines—it was pretty hard to refrain from knocking these brutes down with the butts of our rifles. We heard many stories of the atrocities they had committed in their baffled rage, but the one thing I saw was enough for me.
“We were marching through a little wood in the Department of the Marne—somewhere between Posesse and Givry, it was, I think. The company ahead suddenly began to slow up and halt—they were pointing at something, but the officers cried: ‘Go on! Go on!’ Of course we were curious to know what it was they were looking at, and we halted, too. Well, our officers couldn’t hold us—or they didn’t try to. Some of us ran up through the trees on the right-hand side of the road to look closer.
“Eight French soldiers, m’sieur, with ropes round their necks, hanging to the limbs of the trees! I was right close to them. I saw them plainly. I know. They were riddled with bullet holes. And in among them, m’sieur, was hanging the body of a little girl. About twelve years old, I should say. She was shot, too. She was so pretty.... The officers called us back. There was no time to cut them down, even; we were hurrying along to keep in touch with the advance.
“Yes, m’sieur, we all saw it. Why, there is a man in this very hospital now who saw it, too. Last week there came a commissioner down here on purpose to get our affidavit about it, for some report of the Government.”
