"THE FIELD OF THE. ZOUAVES."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11512, 7 October 1915, Page 2

"THE FIELD OF THE. ZOUAVES."

i THE WOMAN AND THE I BATTLEFIELD. j (n.v.! amk- hoppki;. m t oiiiN The "Champ flc-s Zouaves ' i-> a hirgo jihiteau across which a brigade <>t Zouaves charged, during ihe h:u.t!o ot the Manic, for 'WO metres of bare land, and .struck the. Germans ami crumpled iheni, and tlu'ow them off into a. rnvino at the t-uu, .just as it they Inid swept, th.'in off i.ll o I'llgr oi the earth into the sidereal spaces, Doing this, they left tho plateau dottrel and heaped with their c.;ad. | had seen tho ''Uia.mp do Zouaves'' twice, before. The tm-t. l.itn-<. Ib was a- warm, day of the tail. Over ■c:u'l> of the craves, beside Inn cross ot stick- 1 , a small tricolour (la- had been planted. Thc.so Hags wore still new nid bright, the suu sdiono upon them, aul "a "bravo bree-.a unrolled them m-oudlv: from a distance one seemed, to be looking on agokl-n plain spanned with splendid rod poppies. The second time I had .seen tho J'';'" 1 of the Zouaves it was m winter. he fia-s were ivet; they drooped uismal ly ; their bine and white and red bad run together in one dull And' the entire plateau, its fctubblo bteless and A rev, flagellated by a. piercum cold rain, was 'but u liquid clay which enveloped most frigidly tho forlorn (lead. Hero was something pi so now. J.uy flags had not regained their lost briilianeo. But to passing sott > stirred a little. teut-atrvel}, as us mysterious depths also stirred. A tho plateau gave forth •\N IMPRESSION" OF OR DEI? I.V BEAUTY which I did not understand. After time T discovered' whence canto Uus impression, this satisfying sense ot linear oeautv. The plateau had been ploughed; f rom left to right a plough bad carved it profoundly in long undulauo lines. But a strangeness P° it came, I found alter a u hlio ; , ii \ l tho fait that- the furrows crossed an-i combecl the graves. !. h \£lf intact; each possessed its little ti°s> sticks and its Uttlo flag, and jet uc_l was striped by two or three 1 stared stupidly at this mysterj -that tho furrows shpuld \ ' ,i yet the crosses and the flags . - ■ stand. For the grayos were six months old, the furrows six days. T went up a slight rise, and oil the other side found the answer to ray question. A woman was ploughing m tht. hollow down here. She was ploughing behind two horses. 'ihp, armies, suppose, had taken all the good horses, three two must have been left overs, or perhaps they were condemned, beasts whWi had been sapped of tlicjr strength at tho front. Anyway, they were worn down and flayed to the tabular point, and there was something savagely superb about their very ruin; they looked like the horses of a thouiaud jeais ago come back for this moment- of need. A sinail bareheaded boy with naked legs and one suspender ran beside their hoofs and prodded them at times with a long, slender stick. The plough was an ancient plough. I suspect that tho woman, when fthe> had decided to do the ploughing, had passed by in the courtyard all the futile improyemen vS of tho modern age and had seized directly upon THE PLOUGH OF HER FOREFATHERS. There it was, at work; she leaned heavily upon its two handles and kept its course very straight. She was a strong woman, with hard limbs. She wore wooden shoes, socks of red wool, a short skirt-, and a blouse. She had passed the centre of the field when she came into my view, and she was going from right to left; I watched her, fascinated, lor that si do ot the ! field which she was approaching was bordered with graves,' their crosses and their flags. She Beared them; the horses charged on, the urge undiminished behind them. Suddenly she gave a cry like that of a seagull; the small boy ran forward ahead of the team; I saw him stoop, rise again, a. cross iu one hand, a flag* in tho other, and then, in a new surge of effort, horses, plough and woman swept on over tho grave. The horses turned and stopped. She threw the plough over on its beam, arid rested, standing very straight, her brown bosom heaving. After a moment she took the cross and the flag from the boy with an absent-minded gesture, walked back to the grave, and planted them where they had been. But they now stood iu a furrow; I understood why, all over the plateau, the graves seemed untouched and yet ploughed. When she sank the, share into tho earth again and chicked on the horses, I followed her once more with my eyes. She was now going from left to right; the wind was iu her face; she bent low to it. At that end of tho field; toward which she now strained THERE WERE NO GRAVES, but there was a trench: a trench, dug six months before during the battle, which had held frenzy and blood and the very shallowness of which spoke haste and despair. She made fatally straight for -it as if she were upon an invisible rail. As she neared it the horses seemed to gather tho last of their strength; tho harness chains clanked; sho bent .still lower and put on more weight; the plough passed across the trench, filling it, and where it had passed - there wa.s no trench—only soft loam marked by a furrow. I stood there long, observing her, to be certain. And there was no doubt as to what .she was doing. At one end of the field there was a trench; at the other end of the field there .were graves. She swept her plough from right to left, from left to right-, tireless and resolute. On one side, with her furrow, symbol of Peace, she erased memories of war; on the other side, with her furrow, symbol of Lite, she erased memories of death.