6
Because of its vivid interest and its fine candour, I will give one such
story. It was told to me by a young officer of Zouaves who had been
in the thickest of the fighting to the east of Paris. He had come out of
action with a piece of shell in his left arm, and his uniform was
splashed with the blood of his wound. I wish I could write it in his
soldierly French words;--so simple and direct, yet emotional at times
with the eloquence of a man who speaks of the horrors which have
scorched his eyes and of the fear that for a little while robbed him of
all courage and of the great tragedy of this beastly business of war
which puts truth upon the lips of men.
I wish also I could convey to my readers' minds the portrait of that
young man with his candid brown eyes, his little black moustache, his
black stubble of beard, as I saw him in the rags and tatters of his
Zouave dress, concealed a little beneath his long grey-blue cape of a
German Uhlan, whom he had killed with his sword.
When he described his experience he puffed at a long German pipe
which he had found in the pocket of the cape, and laughed now and
then at this trophy, of which he was immensely proud.
"For four days previous to Monday, September 7," he said, "we were
engaged in clearing out the German 'boches' from all the villages on
the left bank of the Ourcq, which they had occupied in order to protect
the flank of their right wing.
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