They were lyrical about engine-drivers, telephone-
repairers, stretcher-bearers, and so on. The story which had the
most success concerned a soldier (a schoolmaster) who in an
engagement got left between the opposing lines, a quite
defenceless mark for German rifles. When a bullet hit him, he cried,
"Vive la France!" When he was missed he kept silent. He was hit
again and again, and at each wound he cried, "Vive la France!" He
could not be killed. At last they turned a machine-gun on him and
raked him from head to foot. "Vive la------"
It was a long, windy, dusty drive to Arras. The straight, worn roads of
flinty chalk passed for many miles ARRAS through country where
there was no unmilitary activity save that of the crops pushing
themselves up. Everything was dedicated to the war. Only at one
dirty little industrial town did we see a large crowd of men waiting
after lunch to go into a factory. These male civilians had a very odd
appearance; it was as though they had been left out of the war by
accident, or by some surprising benevolence. One thought first,
"There must be some mistake here." But there was probably no
mistake. These men were doubtless in the immense machine.
After we had traversed a more attractive agricultural town, with a
town hall whose architecture showed that Flanders was not very far
off, the soil changed and the country grew more sylvan and
delectable.
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