AN AMERICAN AIRMAN RETURNING TO HIS POST AFTER A DAY'S WORK IN THE SKIES
Copyright by Committee on Public Information.
The cellar was cold, but he was no quitter! He was the only one in it, but company was not his chief concern! However, even a man of iron needs more than pajamas and bare feet to hold him steadfast through an unwarmed February night in a Paris abri. Before two hours had passed the cautious American was fully decided to risk all for warmth. He was a human iceberg when he crept up the quiet stairs and into his bed. The next morning he discovered that the signals he obeyed were the "All clear," that he had failed to hear the warning, and that he had slept through the raid.
But a few weeks later the German came clear in. Again I happened to be in the Gibraltar Hotel, in the hotel this time. I sat in the parlor with Dr. Robert Freeman of Pasadena, a master of the intricacies of Christian service in this war. The windows were iron-shuttered, and we listened in comparative safety. The guns of the defensive batteries roared about us, and above the sound of them crashed again and again the bombs of the city's despoilers. Explosions came quite near that night. A bloody night it was for women and babies.
Again I say it: there is and has been no excuse of even barbarous military science for the murder trips to London and Paris. In one abri that night, a shelter in a great station, nearly a hundred died.
Among those killed in a hospital was Miss Winona Martin of Long Island. She had been in France only a few days, having come across to serve as a Y. M. C. A. canteen worker. She was the first American Y. M. C. A. representative to die in action. "The devil loves a shining mark," but even frightfulness overshot its mark that night. Dr. Freeman conducted the funeral of the quiet woman who had travelled far to be a messenger of cheer and comfort. There was no sermon. On Miss Martin's record-card, in her own handwriting, are the words, "For the duration of the war and longer if necessary." Another has said:
"Her sacrifice spoke more eloquently than words. Longer than the duration of the war will linger the memory of the girl, the first American woman in Paris to lay down her life in this struggle against wrong, the first martyr among those wearers of the triangle who may be found living in every camp and trench of France."