Women in Germany are still lying awake
at nights and wondering what those tombs look like.
Watching over all the tombs, white and black without distinction, are
notices: "Respect the Tombs." But the wheat and the oats are not
respecting the tombs. Everywhere the crops have encroached on
them, half-hiding them, smothering them, climbing right over them.
In one place wheat is ripening out of the very body of a German
soldier.
Such is the nearest battlefield to Paris. Corporate excursions to it
are forbidden, and wisely. For the attraction of the place, were it
given play, would completely demoralise Meaux and the entire
district.
In half an hour we were back at an utterly matter-of-fact railway
station, in whose cafe an utterly matter-of-fact and capable
Frenchwoman gave us tea. And when we reached Paris we had the
news that a Staff Captain of the French Army had been detailed to
escort us to the front and to show us all that could safely be seen.
Nevertheless, whatever I may experience, I shall not experience
again the thrill which I had when the weak and melancholy old driver
pointed out the first tomb. That which we had just seen was the front
once.
II On The French Front
We were met at a poste de commandement by the officers in
charge, who were waiting for us. And later we found that we were
always thus met. The highest officer present--General, Colonel, or
Commandant--was at every place at our disposition to explain
things--and to explain them with that clarity of which the French
alone have the secret and of which a superlative example exists in
the official report of the earlier phases of the war, offered to the
Anglo-Saxon public through Reuter.
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