Page:Punch (Volume 147).pdf/551

December 16, 1914.] sanctuary. Where, I wondered, are those villagers now, and what chances are there of the rebuilding of these old peaceful homes, so secure and placid only four months ago?

And then I walked to the battlefield a few hundred yards away, and only too distinguishable as such by the little cheap tricolors on the hastily-dug graves among the stubble and the ricks. Hitherto I had always associated these ricks with the art of, and seeing the one had recalled the other; but henceforward I shall think of those poor pathetic graves sprinkled among them, at all kinds of odd angles to each other—for evidently the holes were dug parallel with the bodies besides them—each with a little wooded cross hastily tacked together, and on some the remnants of the soldier's coat or cap, or even boots, and on some the blue, white and red. As far as one can distinguish, these little crosses break the view: some against the sky-line, for it is hilly about here, others against the dark soil.

It was a day of lucid November sunshine. The sky was blue and the air mild. A heavy dew lay on the earth. Not a dound could be heard; not a leaf fluttered. No sign of life. We were alone, save for the stubble and the ricks and the wooden crosses and the little flags. How near the dead seemed: nearer than in any cemetery.

Suddenly a distant booming sounded; then another and another. It was the guns at either Soissons or Rheims—the first thunder of man's hatred of man I had ever heard.

So I, too, non-combatant, as Anno-Domini forces me to be, know something of war—a very little, it is true, but enough to make a difference when I read the letters from the trenches or meet a Belgian village refugee.

 "'General Joffre then engaged in a short conversation with several journalists, and when they referred to the military medal which M. Poincaré pinned on his chest, he said: ' All this counts for nothing. Manchester Guardian."

But on the other we offer our respectful congratulations.



Pompous Lady.

Tommy (aside).





"'Once or twice he sighed a little, although he had an uninterrupted view of a profile as regular as a canoe.'—New Magazine."