OCR Text |
Show Priest Maintains Vigil Over Dead Young Clergyman Dwells Amid Coffins of 300,000 Defenders Defend-ers of Verdun. HUT GIVEN BY AMERICANS Wooden Structure Used by Priest Until Un-til Permanent Monument Can Be Erected to Heroes of the Great War. Paris. A mile from Fort Douau-! Douau-! mont, which looks down on the walled city of Verdun, France, and its ring of defenses, lives a priest who never smiles. He is young, clear-eyed, and does not need the ribbon of the Legion of Honor nor the Cross of War with the palm that he wears to tell that he has served. He lives today in a wooden hut with the bones of 300,000 of hrs countrymen, the defenders of Verdun. Time has softened the sharper outlines out-lines of his surroundings, and from a distance seems to have given the 12-mile 12-mile battle front a green carpet. In . . reality, trenches have slumped In. The rims of shell holes have been rounded by rains, and frosts and melting melt-ing snows. Acres of tangled rusted barbed wire have been hidden under weeds and shrubbery. Rifle Barrel Marks Grav-w. Some inches of rusted rifle barrel protrude from the soil to mark a grave the workmen have not reached. Fragments Frag-ments of leather and cloth equipment lie scattered about, and even along the more frequented paths one stumbles stum-bles over bones. The wooden hut where M. L'Abbe Noel lives is perhaps 20 feet wide and 40 feet long, the gift of an American committee. At the end opposite the entrance is the altar, and, forming an aisle, are tiers of coffin-shaped boxes, with the lids resting loosely upon them. Each box is placarded with the names of the sector along the Verdun Ver-dun front where the fragment was found. Flowers Blanket Coffins. Many of the coffins are heaped high with flowers and wreaths, and on all are visiting cards put there by' those whose memories center about the locality lo-cality named on the box. Of the 400,-000 400,-000 French who died at Verdun, said the abbe, 300,000 will never be identified. identi-fied. An "ossuuire" is to be erected on this spot, and in it will be placed these "sacred bones," where they will rest. Ea,ch sector will have a tomb designated for it, where now there ia a wooden: box. Four shrines, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Musselman, will be grouped about the ossuaire. Each day adds to the collection that is gathering gather-ing in the temporary wooden hut which serves until the permanent structure is completed. On the nearest bill is a wooden cross, built and erected by Marshal Pe-tain Pe-tain for the dead of his armies. A few yards away is the grave of a French commander. General Anselln, killed in action. Not far distant ftnd over the crest of the hill is the massive mas-sive concrete monument built over the 'Trench of Bayonets-" where an entire en-tire company died as they watted, rifles in their hands, the bugle call to charge. Their bodies have never been disinterred and- the protruding rifles with bayonets Axed are still clutched by the soldiers whose graves they mark, as though waiting for thl long-delayed command to go forward. |