discipline and spirit and sadly, too, with
a conscious awe in the possession as of some treasure intrusted to him
which he cheapens by his clumsy effort at expression.

Stage by stage the human part had moved forward. Khaki figures were
swarming the village streets while the people watched them with a sort
of worshipful admiration of their stalwart, trained bodies and a
sympathetic appreciation of what was coming. These men with their fair
complexion and strange tongue were to strike against the Germans. Two
things the French had learned about the English: they were generous and
they were just, though phlegmatic. Now they were to prove that with
their methodical deliberation they were brave. Some would soon die in
battle--and for France.

By day they loitered in the villages waiting on the coming of darkness,
their training over--nothing to do now but wait. If they went forward it
was by platoons or companies, lest they make a visible line on the
chalky background of the road to the aviator's eye. A battalion drawn up
in a field around a battalion commander, sitting his horse sturdily as
he gave them final advice, struck home the military affection of loyalty
of officer to man and man to officer. A soldier parting at a doorway
from a French girl in whose eyes he had found favor during a brief
residence in her village struck another chord. That elderly woman with
her good-by to a youth was speaking as she would to her own son who was
at the front and unconsciously in behalf of some English mother. Up near
the trenches at dusk, in the last billet before the assembly for attack,
company officers were recalling the essentials of instructions to a line
standing at ease at one side of the street while caissons of shells had
the right of way.

With the coming of night battalions of reserves formed and set forth on
the march, going toward the flashes in the heavens which illumined the
men in their steady tramp, the warmth of their bodies and their breaths
pressing close to your car as you turned aside to let them pass. "East
Surreys," or "West Ridings," or "Manchesters" might come the answer to
inquiries. All had the emblems of their units in squares of cloth on
their shoulders, and on the backs of some of the divisions were bright
yellow or white patches to distinguish them from Germans to the gunners
in the shell-smoke.

Nothing in their action at first glance indicated the stress of their
thoughts. Officers and men, thei