True Stories of the Great War, Volume 1 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
History
True Stories of the Great War, Volume 1 (of 6): Tales of Adventure--Heroic Deeds--Exploits Told by the Soldiers, Officers, Nurses, Diplomats, Eye Witnesses
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
The poor woman buried her husband and child the next day in a corner of
the garden and covered the little mound with flowers.
There was no one who could have helped her to give them Christian
burial. It then became clear to everyone that she had lost her reason.
She went about muttering continually, with a remote and strange look
in her tearworn eyes, that sometimes looked as if they were blind. She
would often sit for hours on the garden dyke beside the grave of her
husband and child.
It was extremely sad and pathetic, and heart-rending to see her sitting
there, sometimes till late at night, as if she were waiting for the two
to come back.
Sometimes she would lie down on the grave, pressing one cheek against
the ground, and she would lie a long time like that--sometimes until
she fell asleep. If anyone asked her why she lay there she stared
vacantly with a pair of bewildered, tear-bright eyes and answered
through her sobs that she could hear her little boy crying and calling
to her.
IV--"MY LOVELY LITTLE BOY--THEY KILLED HIM"
Every time a convoy of prisoners passed through the village she was
seized with restlessness. She was eager and quick in her movements and
she stood staring intently at those who passed by.
It seemed as if she were looking for one particular face amongst the
many hundreds, but when they had passed by she collapsed again and
dragged herself back to the house, or out to the dyke and the mound in
the corner of the garden.
Towards evening, on the day that we had entered the village, I was
standing outside her house with one of my comrades. She was going about
that evening moaning as she had never moaned before. Her hair was
hanging in matted strands about her face, and her clothes were nothing
but torn rags. It seemed as if she had torn them in her horror.
All the time she went on murmuring, between her moans: "My lovely
little boy--my lovely little boy!..."
Now and then she clenched one hand in the other or struck them both
against her forehead.
While we were standing by looking at her my lieutenant came up. He
tried to soothe her and patted her shoulder, but every time he touched
her she shuddered and seemed to shrink in sudden terror.
"My poor little boy!" she moaned. "They killed him. He was only six
years old and was lying in his bed. 'Pray to God,' I cried to him;
'pray to God.' I was lying on the floor by his bed and saw him fold his
hands in prayer, while he gazed at me in terror.
"But he who was standing over him did not spare him. He stabbed him
in the breast with his bayonet, and he kicked me along the floor.
My husband was lying murdered on the doorstep; his face was red with
blood; his forehead was cut open."
Her words came in rapid, violent gasps, while she pressed her hands
against her eyes as if to shut out all the horror she saw before her.
"But there _is_ justice in the world," she screamed. "There is justice.
I shall find him; I shall find him; I shall find him!..."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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