The light in these houses is bad
and the ventilation not all that it should be, but they are extremely
careful about sanitation, and everywhere one smells disinfectants and
sees evidence of scrupulous guarding against disease. Oil and candles
are scarce and the "pocket electric" that all the men and officers carry
does not last long enough for much reading. There are always telephone
connections, but in most cases visits are impossible save by way of the
underground passages and the trenches.
One officer described the life as entirely normal; another said, in
speaking of a Louis XV. couch which had been borrowed from a near-by
chateau and was the pride of a regiment, "Oh! we are cave-dwellers, but
we have some of the luxuries of at least the nineteenth century."
The Major Commandant at Rethel showed me a letter from a friend
demanding "some easy chairs and a piano for his trench house," and the
Major said, "I hear they have music up on the Yser, but the French are
too close to us here!"
All that I saw of the German Red Cross leads me to believe that it is
adequate and efficient. At Rethel we saw a Red Cross train of thirty-two
cars perfectly equipped. The cars are made specially with open
corridors, so that stretchers or rubber-wheeled trucks may be rolled
from one car to another.
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