Red Cross Dog and Soldier He Got Help For
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Print
Underwood & Underwood
American, 1880–1931
Red Cross Dog and Soldier He Got Help For
ca. 1917
Letterpress print
Image: 7 x 6.7 cm
Overall: 8.2 x 14 cm
Gift of Donald K. Weber, 2009
Inscriptions verso (printed in black): N. 35-RED CROSS DOG AND SOLDIER HE GOT HELP FOR /
Just beyond this wounded soldier, you can / see the edge of a now deserted trench, which / winds around the top of this hill. Arnold Ben-/nett, in "Over There,"thus describes these / deserted trenches: "After more heavy trudg-/ing, we came to the trenches abandoned by the / Germans and not employed by the French, / as teh front has moved far beyond them. / The sides were dilapidated. Old shirts, bits /of univorms, ends of straps, damaged field-/lay all about. Here and there was a puddle / of greenish water. Millions of flies, many of / a sinister, bright, burnished green, were busily / swarming. The forlorness of these trenches / was heart-rending. It was the most dreadful / thing that I saw at the front, surpassing the / forlorness of any destroyed village whatso-/ever. And at intervals in the ghastly residue / of war arises a smell unlike any other smell. / A leg could be seen sticking out of / the side of the trench. We smelt a number / of these smells, and saw a number of these / legs. Each leg was a fine leg, well clad and / superbly shod in almost new boots, with nail-/protected soles. Each leg was a human leg / attached to a human body, and at the other / end of the body was presumably a face crushed / in the earth. Two strokes with a pick, and / the corpses might have been excavated and / decently interred. / But not one has been / touched. Buried in frenzied haste by / ama-teur, imperilled grave-diggers, with a military / purpose, these dead men decayed at leisure / amid the scrap-heap, the cess-pit, the infernal / squalor which once had been a neat, clean, / scientific German earthwork, which still ear-/ier had been part of a fair countryside. The / French had more urgent jobs on hand than / the sepulture of these victims of a caste and / an ambition. So they liquified into corruption / in their everlasting boots, proving that there / is nothing like leather."/ Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.
Just beyond this wounded soldier, you can / see the edge of a now deserted trench, which / winds around the top of this hill. Arnold Ben-/nett, in "Over There,"thus describes these / deserted trenches: "After more heavy trudg-/ing, we came to the trenches abandoned by the / Germans and not employed by the French, / as teh front has moved far beyond them. / The sides were dilapidated. Old shirts, bits /of univorms, ends of straps, damaged field-/lay all about. Here and there was a puddle / of greenish water. Millions of flies, many of / a sinister, bright, burnished green, were busily / swarming. The forlorness of these trenches / was heart-rending. It was the most dreadful / thing that I saw at the front, surpassing the / forlorness of any destroyed village whatso-/ever. And at intervals in the ghastly residue / of war arises a smell unlike any other smell. / A leg could be seen sticking out of / the side of the trench. We smelt a number / of these smells, and saw a number of these / legs. Each leg was a fine leg, well clad and / superbly shod in almost new boots, with nail-/protected soles. Each leg was a human leg / attached to a human body, and at the other / end of the body was presumably a face crushed / in the earth. Two strokes with a pick, and / the corpses might have been excavated and / decently interred. / But not one has been / touched. Buried in frenzied haste by / ama-teur, imperilled grave-diggers, with a military / purpose, these dead men decayed at leisure / amid the scrap-heap, the cess-pit, the infernal / squalor which once had been a neat, clean, / scientific German earthwork, which still ear-/ier had been part of a fair countryside. The / French had more urgent jobs on hand than / the sepulture of these victims of a caste and / an ambition. So they liquified into corruption / in their everlasting boots, proving that there / is nothing like leather."/ Copyright by Underwood & Underwood.
