The same spirit is seen in the neighbouring towns and villages. In such churches as are left standing you usually see the Union Jack and the Tricolour at each side of the chancel, and always the statue of St. Jeanne D'Arc is prominent, decorated, sometimes illuminated, and ever the object of many devotions. It is this spirit which possesses the women of France. Yet religion here to-day manifests itself in masculine types, and even the Maid of Orleans is portrayed in the garb of a soldier and with a drawn sword.
It is the effigy of Christ which is usually seen in wayside sanctuaries, and they are not usually dedicated to Notre Dame. This is natural enough in such a virile country as Northern France. The women, however, are doing their share in working out the deliverance. Near this very sanctuary you may see women and girls on the top of the haystacks building them up. A soldier on leave is usually seen tossing the stooks up, and boys drive the big Flemish horses in the lumbering old fashioned wains, but all the rest is the work of the women, even to harrowing the fields. The harvest is being got in right up to the guns, and the soldiers are not allowed to harm crops or traverse fields. The heavy traffic on roads by guns and army transport has necessitated a good deal of reconstruction. The boys and the old men are doing it. How the women can stay on and attend to the little shops in the villages at the front is a mystery to us, for these shops and houses are being steadily demolished by gunfire[gunfire].
During one of our heavy bombardments recently I went into a little shop to make a small purchase. The building alongside had been shelled the previous week and had to be abandoned. The girl behind the counter was obviously nervous, and she said to me in broken English, 'Too much bombardment I do not like.' 'Tout Anglais,' I replied. Immediately she brightened up wonderfully. 'Très bon pour les Allemands,' she said, and went about her work singing.
A curious note amid this quaint Flemish environment of red brick and tiles, interspersed with trees and grass of a greenness unknown to Australia, is produced by the London motor-buses. They rush past with a roar, filled with Tommies singing, 'Keep the home-fires burning.'
From one end of the line to the other every man has his job. There are snipers, machine-gunners, trench-mortar men, bombers, signallers, pigeon-men. This last suggests the pigeon service. Men who know pigeons are chosen for this work, and they like it. In the stress and strain of battle 'wireless' and 'wire' may break down, so pigeons are trained by a daily service of duplicate messages. They have their regular flights, and there is a constant service of cages being brought up to the lines by motor-bike, and flights of pigeons returning to their lots at stated times. We see the German birds flying back too, so that man, beast, and bird have all been drawn into this great war. They get very wise too, and the older pigeons fly low along the hedges and by the avenues of poplar-trees to avoid gunfire. The pigeon-man follows the commander into battle as well as the telephonist.
But most useful and enthusiastic of all are the observers. 'O. Pip' observers' post is a place the enemy is always seeking to discover and 'knock out.' But they are cleverly hidden. The other day, however, one of our men fell by his enthusiasm. He was directing gunfire on an enemy battery, and by and by he got it. When the Hun gun position was hit he forgot for a moment how precarious a foothold he had in his eyrie in the spreading branches of a tree. 'We've got it!' he cried, standing up and waving his hands. He fell out of his perch and broke his leg. He is now rejoicing in a hospital. We must not forget the wonderful work of the miners. They drive tunnels and construct weird 'bomb-proofs' and other works, thus contributing their share to the coming deliverance in which everybody at the Front firmly believes.
Yes, that little chapel is a parable and a prophecy. Itself intact amid the ruins, it reminds us that although we ourselves are imperfect instruments, our cause is good, and the day is surely coming when these farm-houses and churches will be rebuilt in this beautiful countryside and prosperity and peace will rule. Every gun-shot expresses our faith and what we suffer in the price we pay for freedom and security which shall be ours and for many long years our children's.
In the quiet days they brought their offering of flowers to this shrine. To-day we bring our howitzers drawn by huge traction engines, our field-guns, our mortars, our machine-guns, our rifles, and these are our offerings.
More: from distant lands many thousands of miles across the ocean men have come. Nay, they have been sent. They have been given up by their women, for they are husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers. These men, greater than they know themselves to be, are the living offerings at this shrine, given to the cause of Notre Dame de Délivrance.