As the next division came on to the bridge--up it went--men,
horses, guns dammed the flood, and the cavalry literally crossed on
their own dead. We are bold enough, but we are not so foolhardy as to
throw away men like that. They will be more useful to Joffre later."
It was the word "comic" that did for me. There was no sign in the fresh
young face before me that the horror had left a mark. If the thought
came to him that every one of those tens of thousands whose bodies
dammed and reddened the flood was dear to some one weeping in Germany,
his eyes gave no sign of it. Perhaps it was as well for the time being.
Who knows?
I felt the same revolt against the effect of war when he told me of the
taking and losing of Charleroi and set it down as the most "grotesque"
sight he had ever seen. "Grotesque" simply made me shudder, when he
went on to say that even there, in the narrow streets, the Germans
pushed on in "close order," and that the French mitrailleuses, which
swept the street that he saw, made such havoc in their ranks that the
air was so full of flying heads and arms and legs, of boots, and
helmets, swords, and guns that it did not seem as if it could be
real--"it looked like some burlesque"; and that even one of the gunners
turned ill and said to his commander, who stood beside him: "For the
love of God, colonel, shall I go on?" and the colonel, with folded arms,
replied: "Fire away.
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