United States or Japan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Down went the heads in response, with reverent mien, and the place was very still while the lassie prayed. Afterward the boys joined their gruff voices, husky now with emotion, into the universal prayer with which she closed: "Our Father which are in heaven " They were all sorts and conditions of men gathered around the little fire in that old shell-torn church in Neuvilly that night.
Here again it was severe, especially at Neuvilly, Solesmes, and Haspres, but the whole of the Selle positions on both banks were secured, while north-east of its junction with the Scheldt the First Army had occupied Denain. On the 23rd a combined attack was made by the Fourth and Third armies, though progress was limited to the front north of the bend of the Sambre at Ors.
Whereupon the girls withdrew to the other end of the kitchen and turned their backs on their callers, busying themselves with some reading, and the crest-fallen gallants presently left. They only had a canteen here one day when they were called to go on to Neuvilly.
At last the wait grew longer and longer, the mud grew deeper, and the truck was having such a hard time that the little company of travellers decided to abandon it to the side of the road till morning and get out and walk to Neuvilly. There was a field hospital there and they felt sure they could be of use; and anyway, it was better than sitting in the truck all night.
The Salvation Army truck filled with the workers on their way to Neuvilly one dark night was caught in such a blockade. They crawled along making only about a mile an hour and stopping every few minutes until there was a chance to go on again.
I want to be able to read it in future years." In what remained of another village not far distant from Neuvilly, the lassies had a tent erected. The rain was endless a driving drizzle which quickly soaked through everything but the staunchest raincoats in a very few moments. The ground was so thickly covered by shell craters that they could find no clear space wide enough for the tent.
Almost the first pop out of the box that long range railway rifle at Neuvilly dropped one of those big G.I. cans just outside of headquarters. There was a grand scramble for the deep dugouts. You never saw so many High Ones streaking it for safety. "I made tracks too, but I missed the dugout door by design!
Everybody had worked hard at Neuvilly, but they felt they must get to their own outfit as soon as possible at the Field Hospital up in Cheppy where the wounded were coming in droves and the boys were pouring in from the front half-starved, having been fighting all night with nothing to eat except reserve rations. Some had been longer with only such rations as they took from their dead comrades.
"It is a fool's errand, I repeat, a fool's errand! If this operative, with the Americans, is back of Neuvilly, what is he doing there? Perhaps the Americans are there in force, preparing to strike here." "Impossible!" the senior officer snorted. "Attack the Hindenburg Line? The Americans are stupid, but not so stupid as that. We know that a few Americans are in the sector south of Vauquois Hill.
Our operative will cross the lines to-morrow evening, just before sundown, in a two-seater Nieuport. He will land just back of Montfaucon, and I will then re-cross the lines, will be set down back of Neuvilly and will then begin the great adventure. I am to be back within five days, or " he shrugged his shoulder expressively. One of the officers banged his fist on the table.
Word Of The Day