lied aerial patrols along the front and had made long flights
behind our lines for the dual purposes of observing and bombing.

As the American battalion stood stiff and motionless, I knew that the
thought was passing through the minds of every man there that here, at
last, was the expected visitation of the German flyers and that a
terrific bomb from above would be the next event on the programme. The
men recognised the reports of the anti-aircraft guns blazing away, and
the sound of the motors suggested a close range target.

The sound seemed to indicate that the planes were flying low. The
American ranks knew that something was going on immediately above them.
They did not know what it was, but it seems needless to state that they
wanted to know. Still the ranks stood as stiff as rows of clay-coloured
statues.

An almost irresistible impulse to look upward, a strong instinctive
urging to see the danger that impended, and the stern regulations of
"eyes front" that goes with the command "attention," comprised the
elements of conflict that went on in each of the thousand heads in that
battalion line.

In front of each platoon, the lieutenants and captains stood with the
same rigid eyes front facing the men. If one of the company officers had
relaxed to the extent of taking one fleeting upward glance, it is
doubtful whether the men could have further resisted the same
inclination, but not a man shifted his gaze from the direction
prescribed by the last command.

One plane passed closely overhead and nothing happened. Three more
followed and still no bombs fell, and then the tense incident was closed
by the calling out of the order of the march and, in squads of four, the
battalion wheeled into the road and marched back to billets.

As one company went by singing (talking was permitted upon the freedom
of routstep), I heard one of the men say that he had thought all along
that the officers would not have made them stand there at attention if
the danger had not been over.

"As far as I knew, it was over," a comrade added. "It was right over my
head." And in this light manner the men forgot the incident as they
resumed their marching song.

When Mr. W. Hollenzollern of Potsdam put singing lessons in the
curriculum of his soldiers' training, a tremor of military giggling was
heard around the world. But in August, 1914, when Mars smiled at the
sight of those same soldiers, marching across the frontiers east, south
a