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Chinese Labourer
(From Chingtas, province of Tchang-Fong)

How pitiful they were all along this “sacred way” (see in Wikipedia) to Verdun, where the flux and reflux of the armies ceaselessly crossed each other’s path. In the snow they were clothed in yellow oilskins, with hoods over their heads which oddly framed their flat faces. They had the wrinkled look of an old woman, wan and sad, a poignant melancholy filled their eyes. And it was truly a strange sight, to see these little men from the Far East, come to labour patiently, humbly, uncomplainingly, for the salvation of France, of Europe, even of the world, along these roads, while the long file of lorries covered them ceaselessly in yellowish mud, yellow like their clothing, yellow like the poor wrinkled skin of a Chinaman lost in this torment.