"It may amuse you," he said. "You see, I have been busy as a
destroyer."
It was a record of the blowing up of bridges, and the words had been
scribbled into a small note-book on the way of retreat. In its brevity
this narrative of a sergeant of sappers is more eloquent than long
descriptions in polished prose. One passage in it seemed to me
almost incredible; the lines which tell of a German aviator who took a
tiny child with him on his mission of death. But a man like this, whose
steel-blue eyes looked into mine with such fine frankness, would not
put a lie into his note-book, and I believed him. I reproduce the
document now as I copied it away from the gaze of a French officer
who suspected this breach of regulations:
August 25. Started for St. Quentin and arrived in evening. Our section
set out again next morning for a point twelve kilometres behind, at
Montescourt-Lezeroulles, in order to mine a bridge. We worked all the
night and returned to St. Quentin, where we did reconnaissance
work.
August 27. Germans signalled and station of St. Quentin evacuated.
We were directed to maintain order among the crowd who wished to
go away. It was a very sad spectacle, all the women and children
weeping and not enough trains to save them.
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