And yet it had merely chanced that on the German Rhine, in an old castle lost amid trees, a dear little German girl was born.
The following is written from the front by Corp. T. Trainor:
We have had German cavalry thrown at us six times in the last four hours, and each time it has been a different body, so that they must have plenty to spare. There is no eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, and eight hours for play with us, whatever the Germans may do.
The strain is beginning to tell on them more than on us, and you can see by the weary faces and trembling hands that they are beginning to break down.
One prisoner taken by the French near Courtrai sobbed for an hour as though his heart were broken, his nerves were so much shaken by what he had been through. The French are fighting hard all round us with a grit and go that will carry them through.
Have you ever seen a little man fighting a great, big, hulking giant who keeps on forcing the little chap about the place until the giant tires himself out, and then the little one, who has kept his wind, knocks him over? That's how the fighting here strikes me.
We are dancing about round the big German Army, but our turn will come. Our commanders know their business, and we shall come out on top all right.
Sergt. Major McDermott does not write under ideal literary conditions, but his style is none the worse for the inspiration furnished by the shrieking shell.
I am writing to you with the enemy's shells bursting and screaming overhead; but God knows when it will be posted, if at all.