CARNAGE
Thereis a little valley somewhere among the rolling hills of the Somme district wherein the sun never shines. It is a tiny little valley, once part of a not unattractive landscape, now a place of horror.
Half a dozen skeletons of trees, rotting and torn, fringe the southern bank, and the remnants of a sunken road curve beneath the swelling hill that shields the valley from the sun. Flowers may have grown there once, children may have played under the then pleasant green of the trees; one can even picture some dark-eyed, black-haired maid of Picardy, sallying forth from the little hamlet not far off with her milking-stool and pail, to milk the family cow in the cool shade of the trees and the steep above.
But that was long ago—at least, it seems as though itmusthave been long ago—for to-day the place is a shambles, a valley of Death. Those who speak of the glory of war,of the wonderful dashing charges, the inspiring mighty roar of cannon—let them come to this spot and look on this one small corner of a great battle-field. Within plain view are villages that will have a place in history—piles of broken brick and crushed mortar that bear silent, eloquent testimony to the Kultur of the twentieth century. Round about the land is just a series of tiny craters, fitted more closely together than the scars on the face of a man who has survived a severe attack of small-pox; and here and there, scattered, still lie the dead. No blade of grass dare raise its sheath above ground, for the land is sown with steel and iron and lead, and the wreckage and wrack and ruin of the most bitter strife.
Even those who have seen such things for many months past pause involuntarily when they reach this valley of the shadow. It is a revelation of desolation—the inner temple of death. In that little space, perhaps three hundred feet long and a bare forty wide, lie the bodies of nearly a hundred men, friend and foe, whose souls have gone on to the happy hunting ground amid circumstances ofwhich no tongue could give a fitting account, no pen a fitting description.
Once a German stronghold, this place passed into our hands but a short while since. Two guns were tucked away in under the hill, and the infantry, suddenly ejected from their forward position, fell back on them, and taking advantage of a pause strengthened their position, and brought up reinforcements. Thereupon our guns concentrated on them with fearful results, although when the infantry swept forward, there were still enough men in the deep, half-filled in trench to put up a desperate resistance.
It is not difficult to read the story of that early morning struggle. The land is churned in all directions, two of the bigger trees have fallen, and now spread out gnarled branches above the remnants of some artillery dugouts. Pools of water, thick glutinous mud—both are tinged in many spots a dark red-brown—and portions of what were once men, lie scattered around in dreadful evidence.
But for his pallor, one might think that man yonder is still living. He is sitting in an easy attitude, leaning forward, one hand idlein his lap, his rifle against his knee, and with the other hand raised to his cheek as though he were brushing off a fly. But his glassy eyes stare, and his face is bloodless and grey, while a large hole in his chest shows where the enemy shrapnel smote him.
Corpses of dead Germans are piled, in places, one over the other, some showing terrible gaping wounds, some headless, some stripped of all or part of their clothing, by the terrific explosion of a great shell which rent their garments from them. In more than one place old graves have been blown sky-high, and huddled skeletons, still clad in the rags of a uniform, lie stark under the open sky.
Papers, kits, water-bottles, rifles, helmets, bayonets, smoke goggles, rations, and ammunition are scattered everywhere in confusion. Some of thedébrisis battered to bits, some in perfect condition. Shell-cases, shell-noses, and shrapnel pellets lie everywhere, and there arises from the ground that peculiar, terrible odour of blood, bandages, and death, an odour always dreaded and never to be forgotten. In one German dug-out three menwere killed as they lay, and sat, sleeping. Some one has put a sock over their faces; it were best to let it remain there. Yonder, a Canadian and a German lie one on top of the other, both clutching their rifles with the bayonets affixed to them, one with a bayonet thrust through his stomach, the other with a bullet through his eye.
At night the very lights shine reluctant over the scene, but the moon beams impassive on the dead. Burial parties work almost silently, speaking in whispers, and, shocking anomaly, one now and then hears some trophy hunter declare, “Say, this is some souvenir, look at this ‘Gott mit Uns’ buckle!”