_32nd Division, 125th Infantry, Company “F”_
Close to Romagnes, on October 9, 1918, Stein captured a strong enemy
machine-gun nest. He received two wounds while endeavoring to operate
the machine gun, and then received another wound which was in the arm
and almost disabled him.]
“They locked her up in the little village church of Frise. On the
morrow, she felt sure, they would shoot her.
“But once more luck and the French artillery were her salvation. The
French across the Somme began a lively bombardment of Frise. One shell
blew a large hole in the church wall. Through this hole, unperceived
by her captors, Marcelle crawled. Creeping past the Germans scattered
through Frise, she soon tumbled, safe and sound, into the nearest
French trench.
“By this time her fame had spread and rewards began to shower upon
her. She got the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and some time later
the War-Cross. In spite of all she had gone through, she persisted in
staying in the Somme country and continued to work for the cause of
France. For fifteen months she remained, despite shot and shell, in
her little Somme village, taking care of wounded soldiers. Also among
her charges was a woman of 90, too feeble to travel to a safer place.
Marcelle looked out for her night and day with unflagging devotion.
“Everywhere soldiers knew and admired her. One English General ordered
his soldiers to salute when she passed and refrain from addressing her
unless she spoke first.”
Under the strain of her volunteer work she finally came near to a
breakdown and was persuaded to go to Paris. There she entered a nurses’
school to qualify for the care of the wounded, work being necessary to
her to shut away her personal sorrows, as everything she possessed or
held dear the war had taken from her.
All this and more was told at the Sorbonne Conference, and then, says
the _Times_ correspondent, the narrator made a dramatic gesture and
exclaimed:
“‘This little heroine of Picardy, this admirable girl, this incarnation
of the qualities of the woman of France, this girl of simple origin,
flawless dignity, of serious mind, and gentle ways, this girl of
indomitable will-power, is here, ladies and gentlemen, here among you,
in this room! And I feel that I am the spokesman for every one of you
when I now extend to her the expression of our respect, our gratitude,
our admiration!’
“The auditors, every man, woman and child of them, leaped to their
feet, mad with enthusiasm. They craned their necks to catch a glimpse
of the heroine. Unable to escape them, the young girl stood up,
blushing. Through the great hall of the Sorbonne, where the most famous
people of the world had been honored by France, swept a storm of
cheers. A reward more splendid than the Cross of the Legion of Honor,
than the War-Cross, than the salutes of soldiers at the front, had come
to Marcelle Semmer.”