nding to point out characteristics of
the scenery; and we took great interest in the scenery, asking them
the names of places and the purposes of things, for it is not good
that one's officers should be other than arrogantly confident.

We were a night and a day, and a night and a part of a day on the
journey, and men told us later we had done well to cross the length
of France in that time, considering conditions. On the morning of
the last day we began almost before it was light to hear the firing
of great guns and the bursting of shells--like the thunder of the
surf on Bombay Island in the great monsoon--one roar without
intermission, yet full of pulsation.

I think it was midday when we drew up at last on a siding, where a
French general waited with some French and British officers. Colonel
Kirby left the train and spoke with the general, and then gave the
order for us to detrain at once; and we did so very swiftly, men,
and horses, and baggage. Many of us were men of more than one
campaign, able to judge by this and by that how sorely we were
needed. We knew what it means when the reenforcements look fit for
the work in hand. The French general came and shook hands again with
Colonel Kirby, and saluted us all most impressively.

We were spared all the business of caring for our own baggage and
sent away at once. With a French staff officer to guide us, we rode
away at once toward the sound of firing--at a walk, because within
reasonable limits the farther our horses might be allowed to walk
now the better they would be able to gallop with us later.

We rode along a road between straight trees, most of them scarred by
shell-fire. There were shell-holes in the road, some of which had
been filled with the first material handy, but some had to be
avoided. We saw no dead bodies, nor even dead horses, although
smashed gun-carriages and limbers and broken wagons were everywhere.

To our right and left was flat country, divided by low hedges and
the same tall straight trees; but far away in front was a forest,
whose top just rose above the sky-line. As we rode toward that we
could see the shells bursting near it.

Between us and the forest there were British guns, dug in; and away
to our right were French guns--batteries and batteries of them. And
between us and the guns were great receiving stations for the
wounded, with endless lines of stretcher-bearers like ants passing
to and fro. By the din we knew that the ba