***Photo unrelated to description***
The next day we buried a young second lieutenant of seventeen, He had
had a chest injury. I remember him very well. He had been a touching
patient for he had soon realized that there was nothing we could do to
help him. When we lifted away the ground sheet under which the body
lay, to take away his papers and valuables, we saw a face as finely
cut and as beautiful as the face of a boy on a Greek stele. The whole
village took part in the funeral The women wept for the youth as if he
had been their own son. Colonel Reinhart had come, he had been very
fond of the boy. While the captain was speaking we stood next to each
other, in our steel helmets under the hot sun, surrounded by the
sobbing women, and sweat and tears trickled down our faces. Panic
broke out among the peasants at the firing of the salute they were
unfamiliar with the custom-but we calmed them. On the grave they
heaped flowers collected from their gardens, and they gave us a solemn
promise that they would look after it for all time.
The Invisible Flag-Peter Bamm
|
|
')){kind=link}