The Marine Fusiliers leave everywhere traces of their esprit.
They have taken from a home, three-fourths demolished, a little statue of the Virgin, former protectress of the household.
Carrying it into the first-line trenches with them, they have constructed a niche for the Virgin in the sandbags.
With her open arms and sad air she seems to say to them:
"Our Lady of the Sandbags, pray for us;
A simple figure in the niche am I,
Pitying my children constantly;
Die or win the war they must!"
Some yards farther is found, a little back of the first line, a large projectile, about three feet in length, fortunately unexploded, of the kind the boches have been generously distributing among us with their "minnenwerfer" for some time. A notice of warning says:
"We beg of you to let the infant sleep!"
The sand creeps into everything; that is why the poilus, for the entire length of the first-line trench, have placed cigar-boxes in which to keep their cartridges.