The Detroit times. [volume], November 14, 1917, NOON, Page PAGE 8, Image 8

About The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920

Image provided by: Central Michigan University, Clark Historical Library

                
PAGE 8
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'oould Ye Wet watch Iwo Hours
'V'/ith Me ? ”
Give to the Army Y. M. C. A. You Give to the Enlisted Man
It is the night before Zero. The whole plain of
Flanders seems to move forward, teeming with thou
sands on thousands of men, all marching silently, in full
equipment of attack, on toward the ridge where bursts
the barrage fire of a thousand guns. In among the mov
ing men are motor trucks, lorries, battery teams.
There is no cheering, no .singing, no loud talking.
No man looks to the right or the left. Every man's face
is set and stern. The officers' concern is with the gas
ma:.l;s, the rifles, the emergency ration. These boys have
written their last letter, “to be mailed in the event of
casualty." They have put behind them the warmth and
laughter and petty interests of everyday life. Though
they walk amid thousands of comrades they travel the
loneliest road since Gethsemane.
They file into the front trench. On the t : k of the
watch there is a rushing as of a great wind, a t i tusand
DETROIT TIMES
guns roar their message of death, and the doors of hell
swing wide. Tense, crouched for the leap, hugging the
cold steel of the bayonet to their breasts, they wait the
eventful moment, while overhead the sky is slashed
with flares that light with a ghastly light the tangled
morass of No Man’s land.
And yet —one touch of home! Down the french
comes the Y. M. C. A. field man, his helpers bearing the
cauldron of steaming tea. A cup of tea to a man —a bar
of chocolate to take along into No Man’s land —a pat on
the shoulder and a whisper of “Good Luck, Old Boy!”
When they come out of that maelstrom out from
the shadow of death —what are YOU going to say to the
lads who in pain of soul cried out, though their lips
were mute —
COULD YE NOT WATCH TWO HOURS WITH ME?
N O V E M HER 1917.