Any door not left open was immediately broken
down and the interior searched. Here and there a soldier could be
seen carrying a souvenir from some wrecked chateau. But for the
most part everyone fled from before its path, leaving it silent
and abandoned. The field gray-green uniforms were almost invisible
in cover, in a half light, or when advancing through mist. No
conceivable detail seemed to have been overlooked. Each man carried
a complete equipment down to handy trifles, the whole weighed to
the fraction of an ounce, in carefully estimated proportions.
But this was not enough. Waiting for each column to pass were men
with buckets of drinking water, into which the soldiers dipped
their aluminum cups. Temporary field post offices were established
in advance, so that messages could be gathered in as the columns
passed. Here and there were men to offer biscuits and handfuls of
prunes. In methodical, machine-like progress came the ammunition
wagons, commissariat carts, field kitchens, teams of heavy horses
attached to pontoons, traction engines hauling enormous siege guns,
motor plows for excavating trenches, aeroplanes, carriages containing
surgeons, automobiles for the commanders, and motor busses in which
staff officers could be seen studying their maps. On some of these
vehicles were chalked Berlin-Paris. No branch of the service was
absent, no serviceable part if it overlooked--not even a complement
of grave diggers.
Pages:
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67