United States or Belize ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I said a French soldier gave it to me as a souvenir. And several tetes d'obus? also souvenirs, I assured him merrily. Did Monsieur suppose I was caught in the act of blowing up the French Government, or what exactly? But here are a dozen sketch-books, what is in them? Oh, Monsieur, you flatter me: drawings. Of fortifications? Hardly; of poilus, children, and other ruins. Ummmm.
Next time I looked, the five Boches, or six, whichever it was, had all been raveled out by the wind. Éclats d'obus." "You may have heard about Franklin's Boche. He got it during his first combat. He didn't know that there was a German in the sky, until he saw the tracer bullets. Then the machine passed him about thirty metres away. And he kept going down: may have had motor trouble.
It was the link between trenches; and now and then a sentinel popped out from behind a queer barrier built up as a protection against "les éclats d'obus." "This is the way the wounded come back," said one of the lieutenants, "when there are any wounded. I laughed. "Who taught you that?" "You will see," he replied, making a nice little mystery. "You will see who taught it to me and then some!"
"I am a pastry cook," he went on; "my specialty is Saint-Denis apple tarts." A marmite intended for the road landed in the river as he spoke. "Have you ever had one? They are very good when made with fresh cream." He sighed. "How did you get wounded?" said I. "Éclat d'obus," he replied, as if that were the whole story. After a pause he added, "Douaumont yesterday."
Word Of The Day