With this authentic picture before us, shall we not do well, we
Americans, to realize what our own boys will have to face, should they
fall into German hands?
Dinard has recently been obliged to open her doors to one thousand
homeless children from Nancy. That historical and beautiful old town in
Lorraine is no longer a safe place for kiddies. Twelve thousand have
been sent here to Brittany, escorted by American Red Cross doctors and
American nurses, and their school-masters and mistresses. Poor little
mites, they look white and frightened and suppressed, but they must
be relieved to feel they can run about the beach without the fear of
bombs—that terror, night and day, which for so many months has haunted
them.
Now the soft lapping of the waves replaces the roar of cannon; the
green fields of Brittany, the crumbling buildings of their old home;
but their little hearts are heavy, many a baby is crying for "maman"
when bed-time comes. Their wan cheeks are growing rosy in the breezes
from the Atlantic. Good butter, milk, eggs and peaceful sunny days,
freedom from the fear of bombardment, are building up their fragile
little bodies, and the strained look is leaving their eyes, and they
are becoming normal children again.
We are constantly suffering from the spy fever. Every once in a while
it breaks out in a virulent form. Everyone looks askance at his
neighbor. The most absurd rumors circulate through the whole community,
and the world and his wife are in a feverish state of exasperation,
each one offering excellent advice as to the suppression of spies,
German agents, pro-boches, etc., etc.
Of course, there is some foundation for their fears. If you take up a
map of Brittany, you will see that the coast line is greatly indented.
There are high, rocky cliffs and innumerable caves which might easily
shelter whole cargoes of enemy supplies. Remote little beaches might
serve as landing places, and there are all sorts of rumors about tanks
of gasoline, barrels of butter, piles of fresh vegetables and meat
being hidden in these natural warehouses, and as to how the submarines
come in, signalled from shore by their spies, telling them when and
where to land.
Undoubtedly there are bases for supplies along the coast. It is wild
and uninhabited for miles, the little fishing villages, sheltering
along the shore-line in rocky bays and inlets, are practically denuded
of able-bodied men; only women, children and old folk living in these
little stone cottages facing the rough Atlantic, and who are they to
dare to withstand armed Germans?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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