s get near the gap at Mirecourt.

Having failed to reach the gap, the Germans, with that stubbornness
of the offensive which characterizes them, tried to take Nancy. They
got a battery of heavy guns within range of the city. From a high hill it
is said that the Kaiser watched the bombardment. But here is a story.
As the German infantry advanced toward their new objective they
passed a French artillery officer in a tree. He was able to locate that
heavy battery and able to signal its position back to his own side. The
French concentrated sufficient fire to silence it after it had thrown forty
shells into Nancy. The same report tells how the Kaiser folded his
cloak around him and walked in silence from his eminence, where the
sun blazed on his helmet. It was not the Germans' fault that they
failed to take Nancy. It was due to the French.

Some time a tablet will be put up to denote the high-water mark of the
German invasion of Lorraine. It will be between the edge of the forest
of Champenoux and the heights. When the Germans charged from
the cover of the forest to get possession of the road to Nancy, the
French artillery and machine-guns which had held their fire turned
loose. The rest of the story is how the French infantry, impatient at
being held back, swept down in a counter-attack, and the Germans
had to give up their campaign in Lorraine as they gave up their
campaign against Paris in the early part of September. Saddest of all
lost opportunities to the correspondent in this war is this fighting in
Lorraine. One had only to climb a hill in order to see everything!

In half an hour, as the officer outlined the positions, we had lived
through the two weeks' fighting; and, thanks to the fairness of his
story--that of a professional soldier without illusions--we felt that we
had been hearing history while it was very fresh.

"They are very brave and skilful, the Germans," he said. "We still
have a battery of heavy guns on the plateau. Let us go and see it."

We went, picking our way among the snow-covered shell-pits. At one
point we crossed a communication trench, where soldiers could go
and come to the guns and the infantry positions without being
exposed to shell-fire. I noticed that it carried a telephone wire.

"Yes," said the officer; "we had no ditch during the fight with the
Germans, and we were short of telephone wire for a while; so we had
to carry messages back and forth as in the old days. It was a prett