Kings, Queens and Pawns: An American Woman at the Front

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

One boy insisted on rising and saluting. He was very young, and on his chin was the straggly beard of his years. The Captain stooped, and lifting a candle held it to his face.

"The handsomest beard in the Belgian Army!" he said, and the men round chuckled.

And so it went, a word here, a nod there, an apology when we disturbed one of the sleepers.

"They are but boys," said the Captain, and sighed. For each day there were fewer of them who returned to the little church to sleep.

On the way back to the car, making our way by means of the Captain's electric flash through the crowded graveyard, he turned to me.

"When you write of this, madame," he said, "you will please not mention the location of this church. So far it has escaped—perhaps because it is small. But the churches always suffer."

I regretted this. So many of the churches are old and have the interest of extreme age, even when they are architecturally insignificant. But I found these officers very fair, just as I had found the King of the Belgians disinclined to condemn the entire German Army for the brutalities of a part of it.

"There is no reason why churches should not be destroyed if they are serving military purposes," one of them said. "When a church tower shelters a gun, or is used for observations, it is quite legitimate that it be subject to artillery fire. That is a necessity of war."

We moved cautiously. Behind the church was a tiny cluster of small houses. The rain had ceased, but the electric flashlight showed great pools of water, through which we were obliged to walk. The hamlet was very silent—not a dog barked. There were no dogs.

I do not recall seeing any dogs at any time along the front, except at La Panne. What has become of them? There were cats in the destroyed towns, cats even in the trenches. But there were no dogs. It is not because the people are not fond of dogs. Dunkirk was full of them when I was there. The public square resounded with their quarrels and noisy playing. They lay there in the sun and slept, and ambulances turned aside in their headlong career to avoid running them down. But the villages along the front were silent.