A soldier of the Legion . up of men come from the edge ofthe woods and form into company for-mation, and we could hear them an-swer to the roll-call. I went over andpeered at them. On their coat-collarsI saw the gilt No. i. It was thePremier Etranger. As the roll-call proceeded, I won- 09 A SOLDIER OF THE LEGION dered. The sergeant was decipheringwith difficulty the names from his ht-tle carnet, and response after responsewas, Mort. Once in a while the an-swer changed to, Mort sur le champdhonneur, or a brief were twenty-two men in Hne, notcounting the sergeant and a corporal,who i
A soldier of the Legion . up of men come from the edge ofthe woods and form into company for-mation, and we could hear them an-swer to the roll-call. I went over andpeered at them. On their coat-collarsI saw the gilt No. i. It was thePremier Etranger. As the roll-call proceeded, I won- 09 A SOLDIER OF THE LEGION dered. The sergeant was decipheringwith difficulty the names from his ht-tle carnet, and response after responsewas, Mort. Once in a while the an-swer changed to, Mort sur le champdhonneur, or a brief were twenty-two men in Hne, notcounting the sergeant and a corporal,who in rear of the line supported him-self precariously on two rifles whichserved him as crutches. Two moregroups appeared back of this one, andthe same proceeding was repeated. AsI stood near the second group I couldjust catch the responses of the surviv-ors. Duvivier: Present.— Se-lonti: Present. — Boismort:Tombe. — Herkis: Mort. —Carney: Mort. — MacDon-ald : Present. — Farnsworth :Mort sur le champ dhonneur, re-. A SOLDIER OF THE LEGION sponded MacDonald. Several of themen I had known, Farnsworth amongthem. One officer, a second-heutenant,commanded the remains of the battal-ion. Seven hundred and fifty men, heinformed me, had gone in an hour ago,and less than two hundred came back. *Ah, mon ami, he told me, cestbien chaud dans le bois. Quietly they turned into column offours and disappeared in the attack had failed. Owing to theprotection afforded by the trees, ouraerial scouts had failed to gather defi-nite information of the defenses con-structed in the forest, and owing alsoto the same cause, our previous bom-bardment had been ineffective. It was our job to remedy this. Onebattalion of the One Hundred and Sev-enty-second was detached and placed A SOLDIER OF THE LEGION in line with us, and at 8 sharpthe commandants whistle sounded,echoed by that of our captain. Quietly we hned up at the edge ofthe forest, shoulder to shoulder, bayo-nets fixed. Qu
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectworldwar19141918
