ment, throwing open their rifles to see that no charge remains. Sometimes they shake our hands and thank us for the drive.
In the streets of the city I see French soldiers wearing the fourragère. It is a cord of green, yellow or red, and corresponds to the Croix de Guerre, the Médaille militaire and the Legion of Honor. The red is the highest of all, and has been granted only to one or two regiments. This incident was told to me by a man who saw it:
THE BLOOD-RED FOURRAGÈRE
What was the blackest sight to me
Of all that campaign?
A naked woman tied to a tree
With jagged holes where her breasts should be,
Rotting there in the rain.
On we pressed to the battle fray,
Dogged and dour and spent.
Sudden I heard my Captain say:
“ Voilà! Kultur has passed this way,
And left us a monument.”
So I looked and I saw our Colonel there,
And his grand head, snowed with the years,
Unto the beat of the rain was bare;
And, oh, there was grief in his frozen stare,
And his cheeks were stung with tears!
Then at last he turned from the woeful tree,
And his face like stone was set;
