STARVED BY THE GERMANS.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 December 1919, Page 9

STARVED BY THE GERMANS.

MEN STILL DIE IN THIS WAR. « THE TALE IS TOLD LEST WE FORGET. (From a Correspondent.) Paris, September 21. I have just returned from my weekly visit to the "Val de Grace" Hospital. In a ward French soldiers lay lying under' sheets that outlined their weary bodies like shrouds. Twenty beds lined the wails, ten on each side. A brown stone jar filled with crimson roses stood on the tabic in the middle of the room. It was the only touch of colour in the ward; the walls were greyish white, the floor was white tile, the beds were white, and white imislin curtains at the half-open windows let in the white light of a late September morning. A pungent smell of beech wood and ferns was wafted in from the garden that sloped in a series of terraces down to the Seine. It was a warm sunny day, but heat did not affect them, neither did cold now. Their large sunken-in eyes travelled slowly from a vague, somewhere to the stranger who had just entered, and who stood beside their beds. They were too weak to speak, and their long yellow, bony hands did not open to take the flowers I dropped lightly on the blanket at the foot of the bed. Great eyes stared at me, and from scraggy throats their issued a hoarse noise like the scraping of a file on a rusty iron. I did not understand what they' said, but I saw that the effort brought out drops of pearly sweat on denuded brows, and that some shirts had dark, ugly stains. In spite of open windows and cleanliness and flowers there was a peculiar sinell about, reminiscent of damp and mouldy earth, and of decay and noisome vaults. "lis vont tous . mourir; ma salle est un mouroir" (They will ail die; my ward is a death chamber) said tlie soft faced French nurse, who wore on her head the stiff black bow of Alsace. "These," pointing to the end of the ward, "are repatriated soldiers, prisoners, come home to die; starved by tlie Germans." She said it quietly and dispassionately. Starved by the Germans! For some minutes my eyes took in the vista through the hospital window. How beautiful the world is, and how rich and dear the possibilities of life. In the distance clear cut against the sky of brilliant sapphire, the Seine glistened, placid and silvery as Turner loved it. To the east, great trees, green-leaved and russet barked, stood like sentinels 'twixt the wards where these French soldiers lay dying, and the cemetery on the hill where they will rest. The ward was very quiet, a few men were reading, and the rustle of the paper against the counter-pane made a queer little noise. , A late bee had winged its way in, -and was humming and hovering over tlie roses. There was an unnatural stillness that bespoke of finality and the nearness of death. Hard work in tlie German mines, sweating in the hell-heat below, and freezing on icy nights at the mouth of the pit, with no clothing but the worn and thread-bare suit, the shivery, sick feeling, the lack of food, the loneliness, had broken these soldiers, notwithstanding the brave fight pride and the love of life had put up. Germany had murdered these men! Since the Armistice, hundreds, nay thousands, have returned to linger, some only a few days, otheffl months, or it may be years, to fail as surely in the end, murdered by Germany. The boy on the farthest side stirred. He was looking up at me, and I went to l)im. The hoarse grating sound came from his lips. I bent lower to hear Vive la France" he muttered. tts a smile, that awful grimace that disclosed the toothless jaws? I followed the nurse \rith tlie Alsatian bow into the tiny room she called her ollice. I could not stand it anv longer! Tlie pity and wickedness of it all, the slow, inglorious, miserable death! ' I'm not. much good at anything, but I can talk, and I' can write, and I will, so heln me God! 1 1 eople are already forgetting, lives are being lived as before, business and money nre once more essentials, the red niiihtmare is over, but these men lay, day after day, hour after hour, alone and wracked' with pain What are their thoughts? Do tliev hate or love, curse or forgive, or do'ther onlv passively, and indifferently, wait? As I reerossed the ward to leave it, I -jituwca once more beside Ithe bed of the little soldier who tried to smile. He had turned his face to the wall. 11 ' thought lie was sleeping, and tiptoed , " e, itl,v> iMit, no, the bijr eyes were opei'., storing at no'thing, He was waiting i . .. .. .. .. waiting!