replied Bougainville, "when our
regiment was swept by many shells. When they ceased bursting upon us and
among us the officers were no longer there. The regiment was about to
break. I could not bear to see that, and seizing the sword, I hoisted my
cap upon it. The rest, perhaps, you saw. The men seem to trust me."

"They do," said John, with emphasis.

Bougainville, for the time at least, was certainly the leader of the
regiment. It was an incident that John believed possible only in his own
country, or France, and he remembered once more the famous old saying of
Napoleon that every French peasant carried a marshal's baton in his
knapsack.

Now he recalled, too, that Napoleon had fought some of his greatest
defensive battles in the region they faced. Doubtless the mighty emperor
and his marshals had trod the very soil on which Bougainville and he now
stood. Surely the French must know it, and surely it would give them
superhuman courage for battle.

"I belong to the command of General Vaugirard," he said to Bougainville.
"I'm serving on his staff, but I was knocked off my motor cycle by the
rush of air from a shell. The cycle was ruined and I was unconscious
for a moment or two. When I revived, my general and his command were
gone."

"You'd better stay with me a while," said Bougainville. "We're going to
advance again soon. When night comes, if you're still alive, then you
can look for General Vaugirard. The fire of the artillery is increasing.
How the earth shakes!"

"So it does. I wish I knew what was happening."

"There comes one of those men in the air. He is going to drop down by
us. Maybe you can learn something from him."

John felt a sudden wild hope that it was Lannes, but his luck did not
hold good enough for it. The plane was of another shape than the
_Arrow_, and, when it descended to the ground, a man older than Lannes
stepped out upon the grass. He glanced around as if he were looking for
some general of division for whom he had an order, and John, unable to
restrain himself, rushed to him and exclaimed:

"News! News! For Heaven's sake, give us news! Surely you've seen from
above!"

The man smiled and John knew that a bearer of bad news would not smile.

"I'm the friend and comrade of Philip Lannes," continued John, feeling
that all the flying men of France knew the name of Lannes, and that it
would be a password to this man's good graces.

"I know him well," said the air scout. "Who of our