5.--Eating a ham sandwich while
squinting through an artillery telescope at the cathedral and hearing
the man who fired the famous shots tell all about it was the unique
combination I experienced today, and in retrospect the ham sandwich
stands out as the most important feature, for it symbolizes the morale
of the men before Rheims.
The post of observation was in a sometime French fort, now riddled by
French shells, on the crest of a hill affording a fine panoramic view of
the city, and my sightseeing predecessors here had included the Imperial
Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg; Muktar Pasha, the Turkish Ambassador
to Berlin; Major Langhorne, the American Military Attache, and other
celebrities.
Rheims Cathedral was said to be about four miles away, but through the
powerful magnifying telescope (of the scissors type and so contrived
that only its two eyes peered over the breastworks while the observer
was completely hidden from view) it showed up as clearly as Caruso
through an opera glass. The top of one of the two towers had a decidedly
moth-eaten appearance--it looked as if one of the corners had been shot
away, and the roof was evidently gone, but otherwise the exterior of the
cathedral looked--through the telescope--to be in a good state of
preservation and likely to enjoy a ripe old age. No French observer was
seen on the cathedral towers, and I was informed by First Lieut.
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