530 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



of snow rested on their summits, catch- 

 ing the first oblique rays of the sun, until 

 the ridges shone and sparkled like winter 

 beacons above the shadows. 



Not a house could be seen. The great 

 plain of the Woevre might well have been 

 a wilderness, so effectually had the cur- 

 tains of fog been draped about it. 



As the sun rose higher over the distant 

 heights of the Moselle, the mists began 

 to grow thin, disclosing more and more 

 of the valley. A church tower was the 

 first sign to appear, the gilded cock of its 

 weathervane standing proudly above the 

 cross — the inevitable coq gaulois, a sure 

 token of France. 



Another steeple followed — Damvillers, 

 Reville, Etraye, Peuvillers — I counted 

 them one after another as they came into 

 view, all that was left of what had once 

 been the churches in each little red-tiled 

 village. Here and there great rents 

 showed in the solid masonry of their 

 towers, while gaping voids between the 

 buttresses of their walls allowed one to 

 look on the havoc within — upon shattered 

 choirs and broken chancels, a shapeless 

 cluster of stone and glass, the shards of 

 what once had been priceless beauty. 



As the last shreds of mist drifted down 

 the lowlands toward Gibercy and far- 

 distant St. Mihiel, the full horror of the 

 picture struck home. Not merely the 

 torn and shattered churches, the piles of 

 broken stones and roof tiles that told of 

 one-time hamlets, not merely these had 

 suffered, but the very surface of the 

 ground itself was ripped and wounded 

 beyond all resemblance of its former self. 



Great shell-holes filled with stagnant 

 water, some of them twenty feet across, 

 yawned by the dozen where a few weeks 

 before had been pleasant meadows. 

 Countless smaller holes, the mark of ex- 

 ploding 75's, had pocked the cattle pas- 

 tures until they resembled the waves of 

 a choppy sea. 



TH^ waste and WRECKAGE of war 



Everywhere about me lay the waste 

 and wreckage of war: piles of ammuni- 

 tion left by the retreating Hun, each 

 shell in its basket of wickerwork ; bo^es 

 of hand grenades partly opened ; unex- 

 ploded "duds" still half buried in the 

 ground, as they had landed during the 



days of battle ; discarded gas-masks, hel- 

 mets cleverly camouflaged for snipers, 

 rifles, haversacks, even rubber boots lay 

 here and there rotting in the water-soaked 

 holes. 



Upturned trees sprawled where they 

 had been hurled by the high explosives, 

 while a few great stumps still reared their 

 splintered bodies above the level of ruin 

 about them. 



Across the plain, running roughly north 

 and south, just east of the little river of 

 La Thinte, a line of tiny holes, scraped 

 out by entrenching tool and mess-kit lid, 

 marked the farthest advance of our 

 troops when the firing had ceased on 

 Armistice Day. 



A more lonely wilderness of ravage, 

 horror, and destruction could not well be 

 imagined than that laid bare before me in 

 the growing light, as the mists swirled 

 upward to meet the dawn of Christmas 

 Day on the topmost peak of Morimont. 



Down the road that runs from Dam- 

 villers to Peuvillers, close by the Hospital 

 aux Greves, once a German evacuation 

 point for wounded from Verdun, I clat- 

 tered along through the mist, mounted 

 orderly beside me, our horses splashing 

 fetlock deep in mud and water. We had 

 left Brigade before sunrise, bound for the 

 church at Peuvillers, where the men of 

 the Third Battalion were holding an early 

 carol service. 



a sentry's GREETING 



A sentry by the roadside came to "pre- 

 sent arms," the snap of his rifle sling 

 striking briskly on the keen morning air. 

 A shout of "Merry Christmas!", "The 

 same to you, sir !" and we had parted ; but 

 the day had been marked as different for 

 both of us. It was Christmas after all, in 

 spite of three thousand miles of sea be- 

 tween us and home, in spite of the ruined 

 battlefield of mud about us and the 

 graves of our comrades, many hundreds 

 of them, lying here and there along the 

 woodlands of the Meuse, from the or- 

 dered rows on Hill 378 to the great circle 

 of crosses that rings the heights of Mont- 

 faucon across the river, a silent token of 

 its storming. 



More men appeared, as I rode along, 

 walking in little clusters toward Peuvil- 

 lers. Some, I saw, were wearing sprigs 





