What have I seen?... I saw a white glove stained with a gray spot and
a brown spot. Here is its history. When war was declared all the young
students of the Saint Cyr Army School were promoted second lieutenants.
Their average age was about twenty years. How happy they were to fight
for France. But to fight was not enough. They must do it with grace,
with style, carelessly, according to French traditions. They all swore,
those boys, to go to the first battle wearing white gloves. They kept
their word. But the white gloves made them a mark for the ambushed
sharpshooters. They are all dead. The glove I saw belonged to one of
them. The gray spot is of brain--the brown spot is blood. Piously this
relic was brought to the mother of the dead young man. This special one
was only nineteen years old.
And let us not think that it was a useless sacrifice. It is well that
in the beginning of this war of surprises, mud and shadow, some of our
children died in the light, facing the enemy, and facing the sun, for
the good renown of French allegiance.
What I have seen ... Yesterday I received a letter. It came from a
sergeant in the Argonne, an uneducated workman. Here it is, with the
spelling and punctuation corrected:
* * * * *
"Madame, thanks for letting me know that my wife has had a little girl.
But do not think I am worried. We love our families, but our duty is to
love our country first. And if I do, those at home will be taken care
of, I know it, madame.
"I'm going to tell you something you'll be glad to hear, not at the
beginning, but you'll see at the end. A couple of weeks ago we lost a
trench and almost everybody was massacred, including our commander. I
escaped with a few more of my men. From our new trench we could see
the bodies of our comrades and officers down there. The worst of it
was that the Germans would get behind them to shoot at us. Ah, that
all those Frenchmen, dead for their country, were made to protect the
enemy! I couldn't look at that. So here's what I did. I said to my
men, 'I'm going for them, but if I stay there I don't want my body to
be made a rampart. Tie a rope around my body and if you see I'm done
for, pull me back by it.' At first things went all right. I got back
three of our comrades' corpses. But the Germans began to see something
was up. To mix them up I ordered a feint on the right--another on the
left. I kept on.
"I was all right. Never would those people suspect that I would risk
my life to save dead bodies. So I had the joy of getting them all
back--there were sixty-seven. And can you believe it, madame, there
were two men still living. They are in a good way to getting well, and
they can indeed say they came back from pretty far off. We buried the
others. They are now sleeping peacefully. But I couldn't resist letting
those in the opposite trench know. Not a bad trick, was it, madame?"