oke in English, with absolute correctness, but as one who
spoke it with difficulty. He welcomed me as an American to Verdun, he
thanked me for coming, he raised his glass to drink to my country and
the hope that in the right time she would be standing with France--in
the cause of civilization. Always in his heart, in his thought, in his
speech, the Frenchman is thinking of that cause of civilization;
always this is what the terrible conflict that is eating up all France
means to him.

Afterward we went out of this cavern into daylight, and the officers
came and shook hands with me and said good-bye. One does not say _au
revoir_ at the front; one says _bonne chance_--"good luck; it may and
it may not--we hope not." We entered our cars and were about to start,
when suddenly, with a blinding, stunning crash, a whole salvo landed
in the meadow just beyond the road, we could not see where, because
some houses hid the field. It was the most suddenly appalling crash I
have ever heard.

Instantly the General ordered our drivers to halt. He explained that
it might be the beginning of a bombardment or only a single trial, a
detail in the intermittent firing to cut the road that we were to
take. We sat waiting for several moments and no more shots came. Then
the General turned and gave an order to his car to follow, bade our
drivers go fast, and climbed into my car and sat down. The wandering
American correspondent was his guest. He could not protect him from
the shell fire. He could not prevent it. But he could share the
danger. He could share the risk, and so he rode with me the mile until
we passed beyond the danger zone. There he gave me another _bonne
chance_ and left me, went back to his shell-cursed town with its ruins
and its agonies.

I hope I shall see General Dubois again. I hope it will be on the day
when he is made Governor of Strassburg.

As we left Verdun the firing was increasing; it was rolling up like a
rising gale; the infantry fire was becoming pronounced; the Germans
were beginning an attack upon Le Mort Homme. Just before sunset we
passed through the Argonne Forest and came out beyond. On a hill to
the north against the sky the monument of Valmy stood out in clear
relief, marking the hill where Kellerman had turned back another
Prussian army. Then we slipped down into the Plain of Chalons, where
other Frenchmen had met and conquered Attila. At dark we halted in
Montmirail, where Napoleon won his last vic