Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/233

Rh In a shoe shop thousands of pairs of stumpy, studded black boots busied an army of workers. Rows of shoes dripped oil after their bath to soften the leather.

“You see," the officer in charge explained, " these are all old shoes in process of remaking. Dead men's shoes."

The odour of oil and wet leather was sickening. From the first glimpse you had known what those rows of dripping, studded, stolid boots had reminded you of—boots, too still, on the feet of dead men.

"You see, we don't waste anything," the officer was saying prosaically.

Even among the little children at the Belgian orphilinat where we had tea that afternoon the war dominated. It lurked in the black uniforms, in the young faces where that eternal question was more pitiful than ever, in the heap of hay at the end of the yard which the babies with a perfect seriousness modelled into the semblance of trenches and redoubts.

After dinner that night we heard Williams telephoning in his little room. Afterwards he joined us, laughing with satisfaction.

“Word's come in from General —'s headquarters that Blank has shown up. His parachute