A
mild reserved face, with something of the child in it; the face of a man
who had had a gentle experience of life, and might surely hope for a
gentle death.
Altogether some fourteen hostages, all but two over sixty years of age,
and several over seventy, were taken during the evening and night. They
ask why. The answer is, "The Germans have been betrayed!" One man is
arrested because he had said to a German who was boasting that the
German Army would be in Paris in two days--"All right!--but you're not
there yet!" Another, because he had been seen going backwards and
forwards to a wood, in which it appeared he had hidden two horses whom
he had been trying to feed. One old man of seventy-nine could only walk
to the yard in which the others were gathered by the help of his wife's
arm. When they arrived there a soldier separated them so roughly that
the wife fell.
Imagine the horror of the September night!--the terror of the women who,
in the general exodus of the young and strong, had stayed behind with
their husbands, the old men who could not be persuaded to leave the
farms and fields in which they had spent their lives.
Pages:
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190