1919

The Camera Eye (32)

à quatorze heures precisement the Boche diurnally shelled that bridge with their wellknown precision as to time and place à quatorze heures precisement Dick Norton with his monocle in his eye lined up his section at a little distance from the bridge to turn it over to the American Red Cross

the Red Cross majors looked pudgy and white under their new uniforms in their shined Sam Browne belts in their shined tight leather puttees so this was overseas

so this was the front well well

Dick Norton adjusted his monocle and began to talk about how as gentlemen volunteers he had signed us up and as gentlemen volunteers he bade us farewell Wham the first arrivé the smell of almonds the sunday feeling of no traffic on the road not a poilu in sight Dick Norton adjusted his monocle the Red Cross majors felt the showering mud sniffed the lyddite swift whiff of latrines and of huddled troops

Wham Wham Wham like the Fourth of July the shellfragments sing our ears ring

the bridge is standing and Dick Norton adjusting his monocle is standing talking at length about gentlemen volunteers and ambulance service and la belle France

The empty staffcar is standing

but where are the majors taking over command

who were to make a speech in the name of the Red Cross? The slowest and pudgiest and whitest of the majors is still to be seen on his hands and knees with mud all over his puttees crawling into the abris and that’s the last we saw of the Red Cross Majors

and the last we heard of gentlemen

or volunteers