Soldier silhouettes on our frontStidger, William L. (William Le Roy)
History
Soldier silhouettes on our front
Stidger, William L. (William Le Roy)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives; World War, 1914-1918 -- War work -- Young Men's Christian Associations
In a few moments we came to the first truck filled with soldiers, and
passed it. A hundred yards farther we came to the second one, loaded
down with American boys. Their rifles were stacked in the front of the
truck, and their helmets made a solid steel covering over the trucks.
One by one, fifty trucks loaded with American soldiers passed us. One
can hardly imagine that many American boys anywhere without some noise,
but the impressive thing about that scene was that not a single word,
not a sound of a human voice, came from a single one of those fifty
trucks. The only sound to be heard breaking the silence of the night
was the crunching of the chained wheels of the heavy trucks in the
snow. We watched that strangely silent procession go up over a
snow-covered hill and disappear. Not a single sound of a human voice
had broken the silence.
Another Silhouette of Silence: It is an operating-room in an evacuation
hospital. The boy was brought in last night. An operation was
immediately imperative. I had known the boy, and was there by courtesy
of the major in charge of the hospital. The boy had asked that I come.
For just one hour they worked, two skilled American surgeons, whose
names, if I were to mention them, would be recognized as two of
America's greatest specialists. France has many of them who have given
up their ten-thousand-dollar fees to endure danger to save our boys.
During that hour's stress and strain, with sweat pouring from their
brows, they worked. Now and then there was a nod to a nurse, who
seemed to understand without words, and a motion of a hand, but not
three words were spoken. It made a Silhouette of Silence that saved a
boy's life.
The next scene is a listening-post. Two men are stretched on their
stomachs in the brown grass. A little hole, just enough to conceal
their bodies, has been dug there. The upturned roots of an old tree
that a bursting shell had desecrated was just in front. "Tap! Tap!
Tap!" came the sounds of Boches at work somewhere near and underground.
It is needless to say that this was a Silhouette of Silence, and that a
certain Y. M. C. A. secretary was glad when it was all over and he got
back where he belonged.
[Illustration: The upturned roots of an old tree were just in front.]
The beautiful columns of the Madeleine bask under the moonlight. Paris
was never so quiet. The silence of eternity seemed to have settled
down over her. As one looked at the Madeleine under that magical white
moonlight he imagined that he had been transported back to Athens, and
that he was no longer living in modern times and in a world at war. It
was all so quiet and peaceful, with a great moon floating in the
skies----
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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