146 HERBERT KAUFMAN
��THE HELL-GATE OF SOISSONS
My name is Darino, the poet. You have heard?
Oui, Comedie Fran9aise. Perchance it has happened, mon ami, you know of
my unworthy lays. Ah, then, you must guess how my fingers are itching
to talk to a pen ; For I was at Soissons, and saw it, the death of the
twelve Englishmen.
My leg, malheureusement, I left it behind on the
banks of the Aisne. Regret? I would pay with the other to witness
their valor again. A trifle, indeed, I assure you, to give for the honor
to tell How that handful of British, undaunted, went into
the Gateway of Hell.
Let me draw you a plan of the battle. Here we
French and your Engineers stood ; Over there a detachment of German sharpshooters
lay hid in a wood.
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