These young
Americans have displayed splendid heroism in bringing in the wounded
under difficult conditions. Many of them have been mentioned in
dispatches, and have received from France the Croix de Guerre. I also
saw an ambulance marked "Lloyd's."
It would be useless to pretend that one entered Verdun without emotion.
Verdun, sorely stricken, yet living, kept alive by the indomitable soul
of the soldiers of France, whilst her wounds are daily treated and
healed by the skill of her Generals. A white city of desolation,
scorched and battered, yet the brightest jewel in the crown of France's
glory; a shining example to the world of the triumph of human resistance
and the courage of men. A city of strange and cruel sounds--the short,
sharp bark of the '75's, the boom of the death-dealing enemy guns, the
shrieks of the shells and the fall of masonry parting from houses to
which it had been attached for centuries, whilst from the shattered
window-frames the familiar sprite of the household looked ever for the
children who came no longer across the thresholds of the homes. Verdun
is no longer a refuge for all that is good and beautiful and tender, and
so the sounds of the voices of children and of birds are heard no more.
Both have flown; the children were evacuated with the civilians in the
bitter months of February and March, and the birds, realising that there
is no secure place in which to nest, have deserted not only Verdun but
the whole of the surrounding district.
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