Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/89

Rh first weeks of the war. In a number of streets the buildings were scarred so intricately from rifle and machine gun fire that it seemed incredible a single soldier should have emerged untouched.

Our driver hurried us into the country again. The staff officer, fulfilment of his promise in his eyes, spoke sadly.

“We are entering the devastated district of Lorraine."

And almost immediately we flashed through a village whose simple peasant houses were without roofs or else showed jagged breaches where shells had entered.

"We got as much of the civilian population out of these towns as we could," the officer said;"but it is hard to move Frenchmen who think they have a right to stay, so plenty of them suffered."

As we went on the villages displayed harsher scars. In some only a few walls were left, but we could see rough shelters constructed from the wreckage; and old men and children wandered around with a furtive air, as if in anticipation of another catastrophe.

In the midst of all this destruction we came to a village that was quite untouched.

Why is that?" I asked.

The staff officer shrugged his shoulders.