Mme. de S. is going next week on the cruel and dreadful mission of
disinterring her belovèd dead. She is going down into the tomb in
Belgium--if she can get through--to take her boy out of the charnel
house, where he is buried under six other coffins. "God has his soul,"
she says; "I only ask his body" ... if she can find it. She has told
no one of her griefs, but to me; and she bears herself like a woman of
twenty-five, gallantly....
There is one gay officer of twenty-nine, and six feet two. I don't
think you'd speak of "little insignificant Frenchmen" if you could see
him! He's superb. One finger off on the left hand, and the right hand
utterly useless. So we work at that for fifteen minutes, and all the
little group of soldiers linger, because they love him so--he's so
killing, so witty, so gay. He screams in mock agony, and laughs and
makes the most outrageous jokes; and when he has gone, one of them says
to me: "_Il est adoré par ses hommes, madame; il est si courageux._"
The spirit between men and officers is so beautiful in the French army.
They are all brothers. None of that lordly, arrogant oppression of
the Germans. One of the soldiers said to me: "_Il n'y a pas de grade,
maintenant, madame. Nous sommes tous des hommes qui aiment le pays._"
And Lieutenant ----, of whom I have just been speaking. I said to him:
"Tell me something about the campaign, monsieur." And he answered:
"Oh, madame, I would like to tell you about the _men_. They're superb.
I have never seen anything like it. I had to lead a charge with 156
men into what we all believed was certain death. Why," he said, "they
went like schoolboys--shouting, laughing, pushing each other up the
parapet.... We came back nine strong," he said.
Dr. Blake has been magnificent. His operations are something beyond
words. Men came in to me for treatment and told me that he worked
actual miracles with faces that were blown off, building new jaws, and
oh, Heavens! I don't know what not.