sense of the nearness and
all-pervadingness of the war became even more vivid. Every road
branching away to our left was a finger touching a red wound:
Varennes, le Four de Paris, le Bois de la Grurie, were not more than
eight or ten miles to the north. Along our own road the stream of
motor-vans and the trains of ammunition grew longer and more
frequent. Once we passed a long line of "Seventy-fives" going single
file up a hillside, farther on we watched a big detachment of
artillery galloping across a stretch of open country. The movement
of supplies was continuous, and every village through which we
passed swarmed with soldiers busy loading or unloading the big vans,
or clustered about the commissariat motors while hams and quarters
of beef were handed out. As we approached Verdun the cannonade had
grown louder again; and when we reached the walls of the town and
passed under the iron teeth of the portcullis we felt ourselves in
one of the last outposts of a mighty line of defense. The desolation
of Verdun is as impressive as the feverish activity of Chalons.
The civil population was evacuated in September, and only a small
percentage have returned. Nine-tenths of the shops are closed, and
as the troops are nearly all in the trenches there is hardly any
movement in the streets.

The first duty of the traveller who has successfully passed the
challenge of the sentinel at the gates is to climb the steep hill to
the citadel at the top of the town. Here the military authorities
inspect one's papers, and deliver a "permis de sejour" which must be
verified by the police before lodgings can be obtained. We found the
principal hotel much less crowded than the Haute Mere-Dieu at
Chalons, though many of the officers of the garrison mess
there. The whole atmosphere of the place was different: silent,
concentrated, passive. To the chance observer, Verdun appears to
live only in its hospitals; and of these there are fourteen within
the walls alone. As darkness fell, the streets became completely
deserted, and the cannonade seemed to grow nearer and more
incessant. That first night the hush was so intense that every
reverberation from the dark hills beyond the walls brought out in
the mind its separate vision of destruction; and then, just as the
strained imagination could bear no more, the thunder ceased. A
moment later, in a court below my windows, a pigeon began to coo;
and all night long the two sounds strangely alternated...