Show MISSION THAT WAS GRUESOME tri T k of burying the dead Is graphically described in diary of french lieutenant elarch 23 lust last night I 1 was detailed with half my section to bury the dead the task tak wits was not a plesiant one but it wits was accomplished without reluctance or heri hesitation tation having to do the work at night made it a shade more lugubrious A guide conducted us to a little thicket nil all laid baraby bare by grapeshot grape grapp shot alint to the south of perthes and about three kilometers from the first lines there was no moon and it was wai very nearly pitch dark trench rockets s streaked bilked the sky here find and there and from the distance came the crack of musketry shells were laboring by with the heavy breathing of 0 wild beasts in a rage A little trench was made into a large one to receive the bodies and then we had to set out in search of 0 them they had born lying there for a very long time and it was only the recent advance vance of our lines that made it possible to bury them with some difficulty we manage it to anke out motionless heaps licaus on the ground it was necessary to search the iho pockets pocket and take out immers money manuey etc alo to unfasten tile identification bad badges es that are worn on the arm like a bracelet it wa was not tin nn eay easy thing to d di in this also I 1 was dobli obliged ed to set ill thi exa example aph I 1 lad hid to put my gloved hand int into the of a foul miss mass thit fell to pieces at a touch I 1 found nothing but it a and diary the men then took courage connig P and overcame their aversion when our task tak was finished the alibe it ho had bad accompanied us of liis hn onn on accord stepped to the edge of the grave and suld said a blessing blesing and that priest standing out ont against the darkness lifting hla his voice above the noise of battle in a last bast la st solemn duty ditty to those pitiful fragments was very line fine aery H cry nian man of us whether moved by religious rious conviction or not felt the solemnity of the momen moment tand and knelt to to hear the he words of forgiveness and of life from froin a french lieutenants diary in the atlantic |