On our way
We went back to billets a very subdued lot of soldiers.
Later in the day I noticed a lot of boys talking to a young Belgian girl. I had no opportunity to speak to her then, but after a time I found her alone, and with the little English Mademoiselle Marie B—— had picked up from British soldiers lately billeted there, and with the small amount of French I had stored away, we held quite a long conversation.
©Famous Players—Lasky Corporation. Scene from the Photo-Play THE VOICE OF THE TEMPTER.
I should judge that she was about fifteen. She told me she was sixteen. She was piquant and pretty in appearance, but her features were drawn and her expression was sad. She had a questioning wistfulness in her eyes, but she showed no fear of the many British soldiers round.
This young girl, little over a child, was all alone. She awaited in terror the coming of her baby, and the fiends who had outraged her had brutally cut off her right arm just a little above the elbow.
"How did this happen to you, Mademoiselle?" I asked in French.
"Ah, Monsieur," she replied, "les Allemands, they did—chop it off."