st. As soon
as they came out of the zone where no sound can be made and no light
shown, we saw here and there down the invisible ranks the sudden flare
of a match, and then the glow in the cup of the hand, as the man
prepared to cheer himself.

A more somber and lonely watch even than that of these French sailors
was the vigil kept by our good Belgian friend, Commandant Gilson, in the
shattered village of Pervyse. With his old Maltese cat, he prowled
through the wrecked place till two and three of the morning, waiting for
Germans to cross the flooded fields. For him cigarettes were an endless
chain that went through his life. From the expiring stub he lit his
fresh smoke, as if he were maintaining a vestal flame. He kept puffing
till the live butt singed his upturned mustache. He squinted his eyes to
escape the ascending smoke.

Always the cigarette for him and for the other men. Our cellar of nurses
in Pervyse kept a stock of pipes and of cigarettes ready for tired
soldiers off duty. The pipes remained as intact as a collection in a
museum. The cigarettes never equaled the demand. We once took out a
carful of supplies to 300 Belgian soldiers. We gave them their choice of
cigarettes or smoking tobacco, and about 250 of them selected
cigarettes. That barrack vote gives the popularity of the cigarette
among men of French blood. Some cigars, some pipes, but everywhere the
shorter smoke. Tobacco and pipe exhaust precious pocket room. The
cigarette is portable. Cigars break and peel in the kneading motion of
walking and crouching. But the cigarette is protected in its little box.
And yet, rather than lose a smoke, a soldier will carry one lonesome
cigarette, rained on and limp and fraying at the end, drag it from the
depths of a kit, dry it out, and have a go. For, after all, it isn't
for theoretical advantages over larger, longer smokes he likes it, but
because it is fitted to his temperament. It is a French and Belgian
smoke, short-lived and of a light touch, as dear to memory and liking as
the wines of La Champagne.

Twice, in dramatic setting, I have seen tobacco intervene to give men a
release from overstrained nerves. Once it was at a skirmish. Behind a
street defense, crouched thirty Belgian soldiers. Shrapnel began to
burst over us, and the bullets tumbled on the cobbles. With each puff of
the shrapnel, like a paper bag exploding, releasing a handful of white
smoke, the men flattened against the walls and dove int