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70 wood for their fires or cooking or bricks and debris for filling holes in the road. So the [[underlined]] inhabitants feared as much the readiness of their allies [[/underlined]] to finish demolition, by lack of reflexion, than the ^[[cannon]] [[strikethrough]] bombs [[/strikethrough]] of the Germans. [[underlined]] Blanquère [[/underlined]] tells me that the [[strikethrough]] only [[/strikethrough]] best [[underlined]] way to keep the Breton regiments [[/underlined]] fighting was to tell them they were [[underlined]] fighting the English. [[/underlined]] Blanquère duty ^[[duty]] during the whole war was [[underlined]] to keep the Bethune coal mines working night and day. [[/underlined]] All machinery and buildings were shot to pieces but they kept going uninterruptedly, [[underlined]] lowering the miners by hand winches in large barrels [[/underlined]] and hauling up the [[strikethrough]] coa valu [[/strikethrough]] indispensable coal in the same way. He says everybody got used to it after awhile and [[underlined]] took it as a matter of fact [[/underlined]] [[end page]] [[start page]] 71 of seeing the roof blown away by exploding shells or the walls collapsing. He says the [[underlined]] bed in which he slept stood near a French gun which every few minutes fired a shot; [[/underlined]] but he like others got perfectly used to sleep next to the racket. Here and there we saw monuments to the slain soldiers. also a monument of [[underlined]] raw stone tower [[/underlined]] dedicated to the [[underlined]] Canadian soldiers who fell there. [[/underlined]] Now and then the green squares of cultivated land is interrupted by a white square planted with endless [[underlined]] white crosses. [[/underlined]] row in row covering acres and acres mostly French buried soldiers alternating with the [[underlined]] brown patches of German brown crosses [[/underlined]] where the Germans buried their dead. also [[underlined]] English and Canadian [[/underlined]] cemeteries. same lines of crosses row and row near together.