chipped off the top of it as you would chip your
breakfast egg. The men who manned the guns in that revolving turret
must all have died in a flash of time. The impact of the blow was such
that the leaden solder which filled the interstices of the segments of
the turret was squeezed out from between the plates in curly strips,
like icing from between the layers of a misused birthday cake.

Back within the main works we saw where a shell had bored a smooth,
round orifice through eight meters of earth and a meter and a half of
concrete and steel plates. Peering into the shaft we could make out the
floor of a tunnel some thirty feet down. To judge by its effects, this
shell had been of a different type from any others whose work we had
witnessed. Apparently it had been devised to excavate holes rather than
to explode, and when we asked questions about it we speedily ascertained
that our guide did not care to discuss the gun which had inflicted this
particular bit of damage.

"It is not permitted to speak of this matter," he said in explanation of
his attitude. "It is a military secret, this invention. We call it a
mine gun."

Every man to his taste. I should have called it a well-digger.

Erect upon the highest stretch of riddled walls, with his legs spraddled
far apart and his arms jerking in expressive gestures, he told us how
the German infantry had advanced across the open ground. It had been
hard, he said, to hold the men back until the order for the charge was
given, and then they burst from their cover and came on at a dead run,
cheering.

"It was very fine," he added. "Very glorious."

"Did you have any losses in the charge?" asked one of our party.

"Oh, yes," he answered, as though that part of the proceeding was purely
an incidental detail and of no great consequence. "We lost many men
here--very many--several thousands, I think. Most of them are buried
where you see those long ridges in the second field beyond."

In a sheltered corner of a redoubt, close up under a parapet and
sheathed on its inner side with masonry, was a single grave. The
pounding feet of many fighting men had beaten the mound flat, but a
small wooden cross still stood in the soil, and on it in French were
penciled the words:

"Here lies Lieutenant Verner, killed in the charge of battle."

His men must have thought well of the lieutenant to take the time, in
the midst of the defense, to bury him in the place where he fe