elf on the ground just as the high velocity, small calibre
German shell registered a direct hit on the side of the nave where roof
and wall met.

While steel splinters whistled through the air, an avalanche of slate
tiles slid down the slanting surface of the roof, and fell in a
clattering cascade on the graves in the yard below. I sought speedy
shelter in the lee of a tombstone. Several other shells had struck the
churchyard and one of them had landed on the final resting place of the
family of Roger La Porte. The massive marble slab which had sealed the
top of the sunken vault had been heaved aside and one wall was
shattered, leaving open to the gaze a cross section view of eight heavy
caskets lying in an orderly row.

Nearby were fresh mounds of yellow earth, surmounted by now unpainted
wooden crosses on which were inscribed in pencil the names of French
soldiers with dates, indicating that their last sacrifice for the
tri-colour of la Patria had been made ten days prior. In the soil at the
head of each grave, an ordinary beer bottle had been planted neck
downward, and through the glass one could see the paper scroll on which
the name, rank and record of the dead man was preserved. While I
wondered at this prosaic method of identification, an American soldier
came around the corner of the church, lighted a cigarette and sat down
on an old tombstone.

"Stick around if you want to hear something good," he said, "That is if
that last shell didn't bust the organ. There's a French poilu who has
come up here every afternoon at five o'clock for the last three days and
he plays the sweetest music on the organ. It certainly is great. Reminds
me of when I was an altar boy, back in St. Paul."

We waited and soon there came from the rickety old organ loft the
soothing tones of an organ. The ancient pipes, sweetened by the
benedictions of ages, poured forth melody to the touch of one whose
playing was simple, but of the soul. We sat silently among the graves as
the rays of the dying sun brought to life new colouring in the leaded
windows of stained glass behind which a soldier of France swayed at the
ivory keyboard and with heavenly harmony ignored those things of death
and destruction that might arrive through the air any minute.

My companion informed me that the poilu at the organ wore a uniform of
horizon blue which marked him as casual to this village, whose French
garrisons were Moroccans with the distinctive khaki wor