It was only by the intense solitude and
silence that one realized the presence of some dreadful visitation,
only that and a faint odour of corruption stealing from a dark mass of
unknown beastliness huddled under a stone wall, and the deep ruts
and holes in the roadway, made by gun-carriages and wagons.
Spent cartridges lay about, and fragments of shell, and here and
there shells which had failed to burst until they buried their nozzles in
the earth.
French peasants prowled about for these trophies, though legally
they had no right to them, as they came under the penalties attached
to loot. In many of the cottages which were used by the German
officers there were signs of a hasty evacuation. Capes and leather
pouches still lay about on chairs and bedsteads. Half finished letters,
written to women in the Fatherland who will never read those words,
had been trampled under heel by hurrying boots.
I saw similar scenes in Turkey when the victorious Bulgarians
marched after the retreating Turks. I never dreamed then that such
scenes would happen in France in the wake of a German retreat. It is
a little thing, like one of those unfinished letters from a soldier to his
wife, which overwhelms one with pity for all the tragedy of war.
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