The Radcliffe Unit in France collaborated with the French Red Cross inits work of reconstruction after the Armistice. It was as a member ofthis unit and as chauffeuse in the devastated regions that the writerreceived the impressions set forth in these sketches.
Where the Sabots Clatter Again
by Katherine Shortall
Publisher
410 S. Michigan Avenue
Chicago
PUBLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THERADCLIFFE COLLEGE ENDOWMENT FUNDIN AN EDITION LIMITED TO 150 COPIESSECOND EDITION OF 150 COPIES1921
CONTENTS
THE BRIDE OF NOYON
LITTLE GRAINS OF SAND
VAUCHELLES
WHERE THE SABOTS CLATTER AGAIN.
THE BRIDE OF NOYON.
A returning flush upon the plain. Streaks of color across a mangledlandscape: the gentle concealment of shell hole and trench. This is whatone saw, even in the summer of 1919. For the sap was running, and a newinvasion was occurring. Legions of tender blades pushed over the haggardNo Man's Land, while reckless poppies scattered through the ranks ofgreen, to be followed by the shyer starry sisters in blue and white.Irrepressibly these floral throngs advanced over the shell torn spaces,crowding, mingling and bending together in a rainbow riot beneath thewinds that blew them. They were the vanguard.
In the midst of the reviving fields lay Noyon: Noyon, that gem of theOise, whose delicate outline of spires and soft tinted roofs had gracedthe wide valley for centuries. Today the little city lay blanched andshapeless between the hills, as all towns were left that stood in thepath of the armies. The cathedral alone reared its battered bulk in themidst; a resisting pile, its two grim and blunted towers frowning intothe sky. Nobly Gothic through all the shattering, the great church roseout of the wreckage, with flying buttresses still outspread likebrooding wings to the dead houses that had sunk about her.
But Noyon was not dead. We of the Red Cross knew that. We knew that incellars and nooks of this labyrinth of ruin already hundreds of heartswere beating. On this calm September morning the newly cleared streetsresounded with the healthful music of hammer and saw, and cartwheelsrattled over the cobblestones, while workmen called to each other inresonant voices. Pregnant sounds, these, the significance of which wecould estimate. For we had seen Noyon in the early months of thearmistice: tangled and monstrous in her attitude of falling, and silentwith the bleeding silence of desertion. Then, one memorable day, thestillness had