There has been neither labour nor money indeed as yet wherewith to
rebuild the ruined villages and farms, beyond the most necessary
repairs. They stand for the most part as the battle left them. And the
fields are still alive with innumerable red flags--distinct from the
tricolour of the graves--which mark where the plough must avoid an
unexploded shell. In a journal of September 1914, a citizen of Senlis
describes passing in a motor through the scene of the fight, immediately
after the departure of the Germans, when the scavenging and burying
parties were still busy.
"How can I describe it? Where to begin? Abandoned farms, on hills of
death! The grain-giving earth, empty of human beings. No labourers--no
household smoke. The fire of the burning villages has smouldered out,
and round the houses, and in the courtyards, lie the debris of their
normal life, trampled, dirty and piecemeal, under foot. Poor farms of
the Ile-de-France!--dwellings of old time, into whose barns the rich
harvests of the fields had been joyously gathered year by year--old
tiled roofs, clothed with ancestral moss--plain hospitable rooms where
masters and servants met familiarly together:--you are no more than
calcined and blackened stones! Not a living animal in the ruined stalls,
not an ox, not a horse, not a sheep.
Pages:
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176