The
result did have a look of desolation I'll have to admit. So far the
new secretaries had done no damage.
Now there is one thing common to all the newly arrived in France, be
they Y. M. C. A. secretaries, Knights of Columbus workers, Red Cross
men, or just the common garden variety of "investigators," and that is
that for about two weeks they are alert to hear the bloodiest, most
drippy, and desolate-with-danger stories that they can hear, for the
high and holy purpose of writing back home to their favorite paper, or
to their wives or sweethearts, of how near they were to getting killed;
of how the bombs fell just a few minutes before or just a few minutes
after they were "on that very spot"; of how the raid came the very
night after they were in London or Paris; of how just after they had
walked along a certain street the Big Bertha had dropped a shell there;
of how the night after they had slept in a certain hotel down in Nancy
the Germans blew it up. We're all alike the first week, and staid war
correspondents are no exception to the rule. It gets them all.
I came on my friend telling this crowd of eager new secretaries of the
damage that the Gothas had done the night before. There they stood in
a corner of the hotel with open ears, eyes, and mouths. Most of them
were on their toes ready to make a break for their rooms and get all
the horrible details down in their letters home and their diaries
before it escaped them.
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