eception hall, and the smartness and intelligence
with which the members of each crew worked together was like that
of a champion polo team. The editor of a London paper, who was in
Paris investigating English hospital conditions, witnessed the same
performance, and told me that in handling the wounded it surpassed
in efficiency anything he had seen.

Chapter V
The Battle Of Soissons

The struggle for the possession of Soissons lasted two days. The
second day's battle, which I witnessed, ended with the city in the
possession of the French. It was part of the seven days' of
continuous fighting that began on September 6th at Meaux. Then the
German left wing, consisting of the army of General von Kluck, was at
Claye, within fifteen miles of Paris. But the French and English,
instead of meeting the advance with a defence, themselves attacked.
Steadily, at the rate of ten miles a day, they drove the Germans back
across the Aisne and the Marne, and so saved the city.

When this retrograde movement of the Germans began, those who
could not see the nature of the fighting believed that the German line
of communication, the one from Aix-la-Chapelle through Belgium, had
proved too long, and that the left wing was voluntarily withdrawing to
meet the new line of communication through Luxembourg. But the
fields of battle beyond Meaux, through which it was necessary to
pass to reach the fight at Sois-sons, showed no evidence of leisurely
withdrawal. On both sides there were evidences of the most
desperate fighting and of artillery fire that was wide-spread and
desolating. That of the Germans, intended to destroy the road from
Meaux and to cover their retreat, showed marksmanship so accurate
and execution so terrible as, while it lasted, to render pursuit
impossible.

The battle-field stretched from the hills three miles north of Meaux for
four miles along the road and a mile to either side. The road is lined
with poplars three feet across and as high as a five-story building. For
the four miles the road was piled with branches of these trees. The
trees themselves were split as by lightning, or torn in half, as with your
hands you could tear apart a loaf of bread. Through some, solid shell
had passed, leaving clean holes. Others looked as though drunken
woodsmen with axes from roots to topmost branches had slashed
them in crazy fury. Some shells had broken the trunks in half as a
hurricane snaps a mast.

That no human