PRIEST'S SEARCH FOR A BODY

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12392, 7 December 1914, Page 2

PRIEST'S SEARCH FOR A BODY

A German priest tells this realist!.• st< ry of his visit to Luneville to look for the body of a certain German olfi.cr k'u v,-,i to have fallen on the field. It, is sent from Berne to the "Morning Post": — "How shall I describe so terrible a kingdom of Death '! In the ditches by the roadside, on every mound, in the fields and meadows, mixed up with the dead b"d:es of horses, lay the mangled corpses of tlu; enemy. Some had their arms bent as if in a last movement to defend themselves: the clenched lingers of others bore witness to the horror of their last moments, and blood and dust si ill further disfigured features already distorted by rage and terror. Ammunition waggons, upset and with broken wheels, scraps of uniforms, and arms of every kind were heaped as far as the eye could see. "No German dead were to be seen. Cheat mounds of recently <Jug earth, all in line, carefully raked over, and marked villi wooden crosses, show the places where .the fallen heroes' comrades piously did their last duty by them. After every baltle our soldiers' first thought is for those who are no more.

"Our way look us to Einville, where is the Seventh Military Hospital. Great God, what a spectacle ! For two evenings J have had it continually before my eyes, and 1 shall never be able to forgot the horror of it. In the country house of h French notary were lying side by side the most seriously wounded and the flying, pel haps already dead. They were lying thus side by side out of doors, even on the lawn in front of ihe" house. For days and nights they had been waiting for someone to attend to them, for most of them had , not even had their wounds dressed. And yet the doctors were doing their work with unparalleled devotion, but there were not enough of them to overtake it.

"In tire dusk we had to walk carefully t'ov fear of knocking against the wounded or treacling on the dying- After stepping over the last line of them, we stood still a few minutes to look around the dark field in which they were lying, so close together as to touch one another. The silence was deathlike, though from time In time it was broken by some feeble jrroaii, after which absolute calm prevailed once more. All my life long I shall lenieiubor this sight, that hospital open in the sky, with the wounded unattended to day and night. "At length we' found the dead man for whom we were looking, and whom we had promised to bring back to his own people that they might bury him in his native earth. He was a young officer, whose marriage I had solemnised a few I days before mobilisation. And now we were confronted with his corpse. • "Some Einville people, poor day labourers, helped me to discover llie body, and took infinite pains over doing so. nor would they accept anything for their trouble. 'We won't take anything,' they said; 'we are Christians.' Indeed, their whole thought was for the tragic fate < f the officer and of his young wife. 'Poor, brave fellow! Poor woman,' said they-. I shook hands with them and went away, deeply touched."