h for this story; but we heard it very frequently. Now,
from one of the young officers who had escorted us into the trench, we
were hearing it all over again, with elaborations, when a shrapnel shell
from the town dropped and burst not far behind us, and rifle bullets
began to plump into the earthen bank a little to the right of us; so we
promptly went away from there.

We were noncombatants and nowise concerned in the existing controversy;
but we remembered the plaintive words of the Chinese Minister at
Brussels when he called on our Minister--Brand Whitlock--to ascertain
what Whitlock would advise doing in case the advancing Germans fired on
the city. Whitlock suggested to his Oriental brother that he retire to
his official residence and hoist the flag of his country over it,
thereby making it neutral and protected territory.

"But, Mister Whitlock," murmured the puzzled Chinaman, "the cannon--he
has no eyes!"

We rode back to Laon through the falling dusk. The western sky was all
a deep saffron pink--the color of a salmon's belly--and we could hear
the constant blaspheming of the big siege guns, taking up the evening
cannonade along the center. Pretty soon we caught up with the column
that was headed for the right wing. At that hour it was still in
motion, which probably meant forced marching for an indefinite time.
Viewed against the sunset yellow, the figures of the dragoons stood up
black and clean, as conventionalized and regular as though they had all
been stenciled on that background. Seeing next the round, spiked
helmets of the cannoneers outlined in that weird half-light, I knew of
what those bobbing heads reminded me. They were like pictures of Roman
centurions.

Within a few minutes the afterglow lost its yellowish tone and burned as
a deep red flare. As we swung off into a side road the columns were
headed right into that redness, and turning to black cinder-shapes as
they rode. It was as though they marched into a fiery furnace, treading
the crimson paths of glory--which are not glorious and probably never
were, but which lead most unerringly to the grave.

A week later, when we learned what had happened on the right wing, and
of how the Germans had fared there under the battering of the Allies,
the thought of that open furnace door came back to me. I think of it
yet-often.

Chapter 11

War de Luxe

"I think," said a colonel of the ordnance department as we came out into
the op