1915-12-04 — Page 8

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THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.

FRANCE AT WAR.

LIFE IN TRENCHES ON THE MOUNTAIN SIDE.

[By Rudyard Kipling in the Liverpool Daily Post.j

Fifth Article.

over one caY.

his olan, but his Franob oocasion

ho was an Alsatian on one side.

"Thia," he explained, "is the very best country in the world to fight in. It's pictureaque and full of cover. I'm a gunner. I've been here for months. It's love

A

EXTRA

HONGKONG, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1915

And there came a priest, whe wagasub-lientenant, out of a wood of enuff-brown shadows and half- veiled trunks. Would it please me to look ate chapel? It was all open to the billside, most ten- derly and devonily done in rustic work with readings of peeled branches and panels of moss sad thatch-8t. Habert's own abrine. saw the hunters who passed it, going to the base on the far side of the ruountain where their game lay:

I

A Bombarded Town.

THE COMMON TASK OF A GREAT PEOPLE.

Sixth Article.

taking part in it. Like the review you enw the other day there are no spectatora,"

"Bat it might be of advantage if the world know."

"And also,"

Faid the shop- keeper, "the moral effect on Paris to see more of your troops would be very good."

Bat I saw a quite English pro- Mine was a foolish mark, vostmarshal losing himself in There is only one world to day, chase of defaulters of the New said the 8. ff Officer, kindest and then koove what the others are Still, there is something to be said "This is the end of the line," the world of the Allies. Each of Army who knew their Paris! most paliest of chaperones. It dolog, and--the rest doesn't mat- for the ides-to the extent of a among hills. Beyond that, the lightful fot to realise at first sent, the English officer in Paris battroened itself on fortress ter. This is a curione but de- vistucas brigade or so. At pro- silence was more awful than the hand. And think what it will be is a scarce bird, and he explains mixed anise of business to the later, when we shall all circulate at once why he is, and what he westward. In mileage on the map among each other and open our is, doing there

He mast have Alan carried me off to tea the the line must be between four and hearts and talk it over in a good reasons. I anggested teeth same evening in a town where he five hundred miles; in actual brotherhand more intimate than to an acquaintance. No good," hegrumbled. "They've thought seemed to know everybody. He trench-work many times that die-th ties of blood. had spent the afternoon on another 1200. It is too much to see at

1 lay that night at little French of that too. Babind car lines is mountain top, inspecting Run full length; the mind does not town, ani was kept awake by a simply-crawling with positions; whereby he had been readily break away from the man, somewhere in the hot, still now!" shelled a little-marmite ie the of its detail. One visualises the pain of his wounds, I was glad obsession of its entirety or the grip darkness, bowling aloud from the slang for it. There had been nothing afterwards a white-bot that he was alone, for when one serione marmitage, and he had spotted a Booke position which gaab; worming all sorosa France man gives way the others some was mermitable.

between intolerable sounds and times follow. Yet the single note lights, under ceaseless blaste of of misery was worse than the bay- whirled dirt. Nor is it any reliefing and gulping of a whole ward. to lose oneself among wilderness 1 wished that a delegation of

strikers could have heard it. of piling, stoning, timbering, con- creting, and wire-work, or in- calculable quantities of soil thrown up raw to the light and cloaked

dentista.

A People Transfigured. If one asked after the people that gave dinners and dances last year, where everyone talked co brilliantly of such vital thinge, one got in return the addresses of hospitals. Those

their life for a les emotional minutes in order to make words out of their blood. Somehow it reminded me of coming in late to play and incommoding a long line of packed stalls. The whie pered dialogue was much the same: "Pardon?" "I beg your pardon, monsieur." To the right, monsieur," "I monsieur will lower his head." "One ses beat from bare, montiene," and so on. It was their day and night long recesses of the thick forest. Here business, carried through with Very early in the morning the trenches bogan, and with them out display or heat, or doubt, or mot Alan Breck, with a half-heal for the next few houre life in two indecision. Thore who worked, ed ballet-scrape across the bridge dimensione-length and breadth.worked; those off duty, not fiva of his note and an alpina cap You could have eaten your dinner fest behind them in the dag-onts, His people a few almost anywhere off the awept dry were deep in their papers, or their hundred years ago had been ground for the slopes steep isvour-meals or their letters; while death Beach He bore a Scotch name, ed draining, there was no lack of stood ready at every minute to and still recognised the bead of timber, and there was unlimited drop down into the narrow out labour. It had made naat double of the narrow strip of unconcerned ally ran into German words, for length dug-outs where the wound-ky. And for the better part of

ed could be laid in during their week ons bad skired hundreds of passage down the mountain side; miles of such a frinzo! well-tended occasional latrines properly limed; dug-outs for sleeping and eating; overhead protections and tool-shada where

pleasant needed, and, as one came nearer It might have been the hills the working face, very clever oel-bage."

hostesses and maidens seemed to be in charge of departments or on under Massoorie, and what our lars against trench-sweepera. Men riven trees and stones ONG IRW

daty in words, or kitchen, or vars expected to do in it could not passed on their basiness; a squad what right have been a bit of

scalleries. Some of the hospitals understand. But the demon with a captured machine-gan

have one hour a day in which to were in Faris. (Their staffs might driver, who had been s roadracer. which they tested in a sheltered took the 70 h.p. Morosdes and dip; armourera at their beaches

and visitors,) Osbera were up the threaded the narrow valleys, as busy with sick rifles; fatigus. true, too. We entered a little begged cellar doors; the rained the essential simplicity of it. It irregular but one dosen't care to live, and liable to be shelled or well as occasional half-Swiss vill parties for straw, rations, and am- fortalice with a cinnon in it, in an houses; and the holes in the pare is the rampart put up by Man contemplate it. If regular, there bombed. ages full of Alpino troops, at a munition; long processions of embrasure which at that moment mert looked as unreal as the viol-gainst the Beast, precisely se in the sergeant at the railwa, station particular, because com o are still a few counter-checke. As I recalled one Frenchwoman in rostrained thirty miles an hour. single blue figures turned sideways struck me as unutcessarily vast, eugen of a cinema against that soft the Stone Age. If it goes, all that He shot up a moro like Mussoorie than ever, One understood after a while the by a frail packing-case lid. The were abroad in the streets, and the it sees this at the front at it is the most undesirable persons mee,

naw-made road, between the brown sunless walls. even though it was partly closed and simple setting. The people keeps us from the Beast goes with aid when he helped us out of an explained to me the necessitice o

impasse "You will ranlise that civilised life. These included a and did not fall down the hillside nightmare that lays hold of trench-colonel eat him down in front of it, little children were playing. A clearly se one sees the French

a manicurist, and a even once. An ammunition-mule stale men, when the dreamer wan- and explained the theory of this big shell gives notice enough for villages behind the German lines. whose papers sro the most regal-maid to look after the lap-dogs. of a mountain-battery met him at ders for ever in those blind mezes sert of redoubt. "By the way,'

one to get to abelter, if the shelter Sometimes people steal away from The Commissary of Polias is at been for months past on the dis ar. It is their business, you soe. She is employed now, sad has a tight corner, and began to climb till, after centuries of agonising he said to the gunner at lart, ie near enough. That appears to them and bring of what they the Hotel de Ville, if you will

fight, he finds himself stumbling "can't you find something better be as much as anyone expects in "See! There isn't another out again into the white blaze and then that ?" He twitched the lid the world where one is shelled,

Where the rifle and the bayonet come along for the little formality. place in France where that could horror of the mined front he who aside. I think it's too light. and that world has settled down serve, men use those tools along Myself, I used to keep a shop in happen," said Alan.

**I tell you, thought he had almost reached Got a log of wood or something." to it. People's lips are a little the front. Where the knife gives Paris. My Gol, these provincial this is a magnificent country." home!

The mule was hauled down by

firmer, the modelling of the brows better resalts, they go in behind towns are desolating!" is a little more pronounced, and, twelve inch knife. Each raos is

Paris-And No Foreigners. the hand-grenades with the naked bis tail before he had reached the

maybe, there is a change in the supposed to fight in its own waying itself in the streets, whose less chain of fire-baskets works He would have loved his Pario All France works cutwards to lower branches, and went on

aa we found it, Life was renew- through the woods, hie ammani-now. Their trank, lay along the When he said they were beside nothing that a casual afternoon but this war has passed beyond drawing and proportion one could forwards the conflagration, Leave

expression of the eyes;

the Front-presietly as an end- caller need particularly notice.

ly."

a tree.

In the Front Line. There were no trees abore ue

plugged rather like old-fashioned The loopholes not in usa were hives. Said the colonel, rembring plug: "Here are the Bochos. Look, and you'll see their sand- Through the jumble of

"And we may get shelled now,' he added, hopefully. They shell this town, whenever they think of it. Perhaps they'll shell us at tea."

It was a quaintly-beautiful little place, with its mixture of French

green sacking. "They're about and German ideas: its old bridge by the changing on the seven metres distant just hero," and gentle-minded river, between unbaried dead are cloaked. the colonel went on. That was the cultivated bills. The sand- Yet there are no words to give

Handy Trench-sweepers, I loved that colonel!

He know

,

endure,

That a civilian should be in the at Sone at all is a fair guarantee of his good faith. It is when he that questions begin, and the per- in outside the zone anohsperoned mits are looked into, If these are

infection and repair of soldiers clothes. There was no need to sak after the men one had known. Still, there was no sense of deso- lation. They had gone on; the others were gatting rendy.

Himalayan. Only the Mercedeshe touched.” It was a young law- The uncanny thing was the abdene, garages, outbuildings, and Garry an edge to their fighting, a beloved city for the first time was and tradition of war for existence,

stranger.

"Halt!"enid Alan at last, when she had done everything except imitate the mule.

"The road continue," said the demon-driver seductively.

"Yes, but they will hear you if you go on. Stop and wait. We're

a mountain battery to loďk at,"

They were not at work for the

Coat to me.

moment, and the commandant, alt might have been a ragpicker's men who merely stood within easy

grin and forceful man, showed me some details of their construc-

them a

said he,

Supports and Romrves.

his men and he knew the Booher had them marked down like birds, tion boxes jinking on his book, edge of the tranch, bailt in with dead trees or behind baaldere, for all the world as though beatones, where necessary, or some-

all the known ways. They say were rejoining his battery at times overhanging it in ragged But, as I have said, the dinner- sure enough there they were !

People's the fire behind you and go back that the Belgians in the north ever notice before. settle accounts with a certain dry esemed to be ast to a longer range, plies. You will find no break, eyes, and the women's especially, till you reach the source of sap- Jutogh. One expected to meet splinters or bushy tops. Bita of hour is always slack, and even

Cases for Hospital. the little hill people bent under cloth, not French, showed, too, in when we came to a place where a

The house where we took tea little since their sgony began. would have asid they oame from baste, but never any slackening. passion which has varied very a more comprehensive gaze. Due no their loads under the forest gloom.the uneven linee of debris at the section of trench had been bashed old and massive, a treasure house have prodused a soft-voiced, rather where things are for and simple, little or big, and nobody disputes

was the "big house "of the place, Some sections of the English line

pause, no apparent The light, the colour, the smell of trench lip, and some thoughtful open by trench-aweepers, and it of ancient furniture. It had reserved type, which does its work rather than from houses. Best of how they should be used. It is

the nea or the mountains, Everybody has his or her bucket, wood-smoke, pine-needles, wet eoul had marked an unexploded earth, and warm male were all Bocho trench-sweeper as

was recommended to duck and everything that the moderate with its mouth ebat. The French all, there were no foreignore the people possessed of the precedent not to hurry, nothing much happened. heart of man could desire-gar- WAH violently and loudly a ser from Paris who pointed that sence of movement in the Boche the air of pesos that goes with ledge, coupled with so insensibili-end. It felt like coming back to hard labour, saculy economical precision, and a dreadful know. Freash throughout from end to scouantomed to hard living and of an indescribable pit of rain, or heard o riffe-bolt working after door was a brand-new blindage of kind. To be sure, there has never houseful of visitors. The fanced by their resolve and endurance. We met the colonel at the headed that one sucht strange to basso, cellar, and opposite the cellar or to shook, nalike anything an old friend's house for a quiet by temperament, logical by train-

trenches. Sometimesone imagin- beauty in age. It stood over a high

bas imagined of man- full of sunabina, whose stops ran a shot, Otherwise they were as earth packed between timbers. been liks provocation, for ever tionaries and police had drapped

talk after he had got rid of a ing and illumined and transfigar down a very steep hillside caderaill as pig at noonday.

The cellar was a hospital, with its since the Air went about to about their maske of officist politeness, overtakes an acquaintance whom plunging parapet. To the loft past trench-sweepers of a handy, electrio light the orderly waited the world united to bind the hotels, so like school two days how the man's nature sometimes the los of au almost vortically We held on through the make, beds and stores, and under the to bind the Fenris Wolf has all and were just friendly. At the till then we conceived we know, You know, when supreme trial of that parapet the whole hillside light pattern, with their screw-ready for the cases to be carried Beast. split stones, and powdered soil. grave or ao; and when I came on was one gruel of smashed tees, tailed obarge all ready; and a down out of the stroots.

The lant 1 saw of the front we personal valet, the chambermaid He who was altogether such a one before the term begins, the im- changes pist knowledge or belief. "Yes, they are all civil cases," Alan Breek speeding back to hie of the set two-franc-amile, and the as ourselves goes forward simply, dumpheap on a colossal sosle,

gun positions among the moon-nobening head weiter had given even lightly, to heights we thought Alan looked at it critically. In the second line. When they ing-A woman gaebed by falling in, and I wondered what delight place to one's ora brothers, and unattainable. Though he is. The

reach of their rifles, I know I wa They come without much warn- tion: When we left them in their think he had helped to make it lay frankly at ease in their dag-timber; a child with its temple have been in the good old days.

of a household the lad must bower-it looked like nhill not long before,

sisters, fall of one's own anxieties. | very same comrade that lived our priest's way-side shrine we board

oats I knew it was the third. A crashed by a flying stone; an ar them singing through the sleep-now, and the Bookes are balow three.

"We're on the top of the bill shotgun would have sprinkled all goat smputation case, and to on.

"My son is au aviator, monsieur. small life with us, yet in all things I could have claimed Italian na- be has become great. So it in descending pince. They, too, like us," said be. "We gave

One never knowe. Bomb.rd- Then wohad to workeur way, de- tionality for him at the beginning, with France to-day. She has dis- the 75's neom to have no pet name very fair sickenor lately."

"No fat plaine," said Alan. ment, the Boche text-books say,partment by department, against bat he would not have it, covered the measure of her soul. in the service.

"No hunting for gas positions" is designed to terrify the civil the tides of man behind the line This," said the colonel, "is the bills are full of them and the population so that they may put-supports and their supports, re-

'Both my brothers, monsieur, It was a poisonously blind the front line."

are at the war. Ons is dead al- country. The woode blocked all

There were overhead guardsmanding each other.

The New War, treaches close together and com- pressure on their politicians to serves and reserves of reserves, as ready. And my fiance, I have sanes of direction

One wegs this not alone in the above and against hand-homba which die- what a beautiful country it is."

You see conclude peace." In real life men well as the masree in training, not heard from bim sincs Marob.it is more than contempt of around. The ground was at any posed me to believe him, but what

are very rarely soothed by the The flooded towns and villages, He is ook in a battalion." angle you please, and all sounds convinced me most was s corporal. from another point of view. War tared.

The colonel confirmed this, but eight of their women being tor and when we tried short-outs we

"Here is the wine list, monsieur.tion of her people under arma death in the godlike preoccupa were split up and maddled by arging us in whispora not to talk was his businese, as the still words

found them in every by-line. Yes, both my sons and nephew, which makes them put death oat the tree.trank, which sated as so loud. The men were at dinner, could testify-bat his hobby was with s propriety and an inter- ing their home letters with the word of news. My God, we all passion and fervour with which We took tea in the hall upstairs, Have you seen mounted men read-end-I have no news of them, not of the account, but in the squsl silencers. High above as the re-land a good smell of food filled the his trenches. He had tapped the change of compliments that salted reins thrown on the hormon decks, suffer these days." And so, too, her people throughout give them. spectable, all-concealing forest renoh. This was the first smell monatain streams and dug out a the little occasion. There was no moving in absorbed silence among the shops-the mors state-selves to the smallest as well as had turned into sparse, ghastly I had encountered in my long laundry where a man could wash attempt to disguise the existence through a strest which almost ment of the loss or the grief at the greatest tasks that may in any blue sticks of timber-en assemb-travels up-hill-a mixed, entirely his shirt and go up and be killed of a bombardment, but it was not said "Hush!" to its doge; ormet, the heart, but never a word of way serve their sword. I might ly of leper-trees round a bald wholesome flavour of stew, leather, in it, all in a morning; had drain- allowed to overweigh talk of light-in a forent, a procession of per-doubt, never a whimper of des tell you something that I saw of mountain top. "That's where fourth, and rifle-oil, we're going," said Aton, "Isn't it

ed the treaches till a muddyer matters. I know oce guest fectly new big guns, apparently pair un adorable country ?"

stretch in them was an offence: who at through it as near me | taking themselves from the founkosper, "does not our Govern- of the cleaners; what they said in

the cleaning out of certain lattices; A proportion of men were and at the bottom of the hill (it might boinarticulate with wonder. dry to the front?

"Now why "asked a shop-of the education and antecedents standing to arms while others ate; looked like a hydropathia estub But he was English, and when Tranches.

but dinner-time is slack time, lishment on the stage) he had Alan asked him whether he had there in not much" window-dress both our Governments, send some In spite of their love of drama, ment, or your Government, or A machine gun loosed a few lovon omong animals, and it was created baths where kalf a balla enjoyed himself, he said: "Ohing" in the French obaracter. of the British Army to Paris? I shots in the fumbling style of her alone on noon. kind when they feel for an open- "The Boobes got their soup a never told me how all that country

lion at a time could wash. He you. Thank you very much.": The Boche, who is the priest of assure you we should make them ing: A couple of rifle shote an- few dayango." someone whispered. had been fought over as fiercely no Alan went on.

"Nice people, aren't they?" the Higher Counter-jumpers, welcome." awered. They might have been I thought of the pulverised bill Ypres in the west; nor what blood

would have had half the neutral "Perbupa," I began, "you halfa mile away or a hundred side, and hoped it had been hot had gone down the valleys before good tea,"

Oh, very nice. And and sach Press out in cars to advatiss these might make them too welcome." yards below! An adorable coun- enough.

vast spectacles of men and materi. He laughed. "We should make try! We climbed up till we

behistronobes pushed over the scalp- Weedged along the still trench, ed mountain top. No, Ha sketch of his sentiments to Alan after makes their rich farmers keep to They would enjoy themselves." found once again a complote to where the soldiers stared, with ed eat now endeavours in earth dinner.

He managed to convey a few al. But the same instinet as them as welcome as our own army, garden of litila suak louros, a justified contempt, Ithought, upon and stones and trees for the com-

their smocks makes the French had a vision of British officers,

I most invisible in the brown-pick the civilian who sculled through fort of bis men on that populous people have dose?" said he,

"But what else could the keep quiet.

each with ninety days' pay, to his **This is our affair," they ar- oredit, and a dameal or two at "They are French."

gue. "Everybody, concerned is home, shopping consumedly,

Lainomi JatyannM

Front Line Professionals.

mountain.

work was done. There was a little the matter and how perfectly, the Rabelole in it, naturally; but the rest was pure devotion, rejoicing Similarly with stables, barricad- rs, and barbad-wire work, the clearing and piling away of wreck- meals till the service rocks on its ed house-rabbish, the serving of por tired feet, but keeps its tem per; and all the unlovely mono tonous detaile that go with war. (Continued on Second

to be of nae. PHOEN