Arthur Gleason - Our Part in the Great War

"Go and bring the War Minister your work," said the Major who was conducting us.

A little chattering sound came from the lips of the boy. It sounded like the note of a bird, a faint twittering, making the sound of "Wheet-Wheet" – twice repeated each half minute. Then began the strangest walk I have ever seen. His legs thrust out in unexpected directions, his arms bobbed, his whole body trembled. Sometimes he sank partly to the ground. His progress was slow, because he was spilling his vitality in these motions. And all the time, the low chirrup came from his lips. More laborious and cruel than the price paid by the victims of vice was this walk of one who had served his country.

And yet nothing in the indignity that had been done to his body could rob him of that sweetness of expression.

"A shell exploded directly in front of him," explained the doctor, "the sudden shock broke his nervous system, and gave him what is practically a case of locomotor ataxia. He trembles continuously in every part. It forces out the little cry. The effect of that shock is distributed through his entire body. That is what gives hope for his recovery. If the thing had centered in any one function, he would be a hopeless case. But it is all diffused. When the war ends many of these men who are nerve-shattered, will recover, we believe. As long as the war lasts, they live it, they carry a sense of responsibility, with the horror that goes with it. But when they know the shelling is over for ever they will grow better."

In a few minutes the young soldier returned carrying two baskets. The one thing that is saving that man from going crazy is his basket making. Very patiently and skillfully his shaking hands weave close-knit little baskets. Some of them were open trays for household knick-knacks. Others were worked out into true art shapes of vase. I shan't forget him as he stood there trembling, the little reed baskets rocking in his hands, but those baskets themselves revealing not a trace of his infirmity. Only his nervous system was broken. But his will to work, his sweet enduring spirit, were the will and the heart of France.

The War Minister, in whose hands rests the health of four million soldiers, is as painstaking, as tender as a nurse. Fifteen minutes he gave that man – fifteen minutes of encouragement. The rest of France waited, while this one little twitching representative of his race received what was due from the head of the nation to the humblest sufferer. Do I need to say that the soldier was bought out? Professor Mark Baldwin and Bernard Shoninger held an extempore auction against each other. But one basket they could not buy and that was the tray the man had woven for his wife. He was proud to show it, but money could not get it. And he was a thrifty man at that. For, as soon as he had received his handful of five-franc notes, he went to his room, where he sleeps alone so that his twittering will not disturb the other men, and hid the money in his kit. Something more for his wife to go with the basket.

Clearing house of the suffering of France, the Maison Blanche is the place where the mutilated of the Grand Army come. As quickly as they are discharged from hospital, they are sent to this Maison Blanche, while completing their convalescence, before they return to their homes. It is here that arms, legs, stumps, hands and the apparatus that operates these members, are fitted to them. They try out the new device. It is to them like a foot asleep to a whole man; a something numb and strange out beyond the responses of the nervous system. It behaves queerly. It requires much testing to make it articulate naturally.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Some of our people go further even than the giving of banquets to the efficient staff of the Deutschland . They give praise to U-53. In a newspaper, edited and owned by Americans, and published in an American Middle Western city of 40,000 inhabitants, the leading editorial on the exploits of U-53 was headed, "Hats Off to German Seamen," and the writer says:

"The world in general that had educated itself to regard the German as a phlegmatic and plodding citizen will remove its headgear in token of approbation of the sustained series of sensational feats by German commanders and sailors. The entire aspect of affairs has been changed by the events of two years. The Germans have accumulated as much heroic and romantic material in that time as has been gathered by other nations since the date of the American Revolution."

In the second section of this book, I have told why we talk like that. The mixture of races (mixed but not blended), the modern theory of cosmopolitanism, a self-complacency in our attitude toward Europe, an assumption that we alone champion freedom and justice, the fading of our historic tradition – these have caused us to preach internationalism, but fail to defend ourselves or the little nation of Belgium. They have led us to admire successful force.