filled the building.
The other members of the congregation looked on for a moment in surprise,
then one after another they started to sing, and in a moment nearly
all in the place were aiding the choir. One was silent, however, the
lady of the _cafe_; still deep in prayer she scarcely glanced at the
singers, her mind was full of another matter. Only a mother thinking
about a loved son can so wholly lose herself from the world. And as I
looked at her I thought I detected tears in her eyes.

The priest, a pleasant faced young man, who spoke very quickly (I have
never heard anybody speak like him), thanked the soldiers, and through
them their nation for all that was being done to help in the war;
prayers were said for the men at the front, those who were still
alive, as well as those who had given up their lives for their
country's sake, and before leaving we sang the national anthem, our's,
_God Save the King_.

With the pipers playing at our front, and an admiring crowd of (p. 042)
boys following, we took our way back to our billets. On the march a
mate was speaking, one who had been late coming on parade in the
morning.

"Saw the woman of the _cafe_ in church?" he asked me. "Saw her
crying?"

"I thought she looked unhappy."

"Just after you got off parade the news came," my mate told me. "Her
son had been killed. She is awfully upset about it and no wonder. She
was always talking about her _petit garcon_, and he was to be home on
holidays shortly."

Somewhere "out there" where the guns are incessantly booming, a
nameless grave holds the "_petit garcon_," the _cafe_ lady's son; next
Sunday another mourner will join with the many in the village church
and pray to the Virgin Mother for the soul of her beloved boy.

CHAPTER IV (p. 043)

THE NIGHT BEFORE THE TRENCHES

Four by four in column of route,
By roads that the poplars sentinel,
Clank of rifle and crunch of boot--
All are marching and all is well.
White, so white is the distant moon,
Salmon-pink is the furnace glare,
And we hum, as we march, a ragtime tune,
Khaki boys in the long platoon,
Going and going--anywhere.

"The battalion will move to-morrow," said the Jersey youth, repeating
the orders read out in the early part of the day, and removing a clot
of farmyard muck from the foresight guard of his rifle as he spoke. It
was seven o'clock in the evening, the hour