ance away, but after
an exchange of compliments in an idyllic glade, where a party of
French soldiers lived in the friendliest juxtaposition with the British
infantry surrounding them--it was a cheery bivouac among the trees, with
the fragrance of a stew-pot mingling with the odor of burning wood--the
lieutenant insisted upon leading the way to the top of the hill.

He made a slight detour to point out a German shell which had fallen
there without exploding, and made laughing comments upon the harmless,
futile character of those poor Germans in front of us. They did their
best to kill us, but oh, so feebly!

Yet when I took a pace toward the shell he called out, sharply, "Ne
touchez pas!" I would rather have touched a sleeping tiger than that
conical piece of metal with its unexploded possibilities, but bent low
to see the inscriptions on it, scratched by French gunners with wore
recklessness of death. Mort aux Boches was scrawled upon it between the
men's initials.

Then we came to the hill-crest and to the last of our trenches, and,
standing there, looked down upon the villages of Vaux and Curlu,
separated by a piece of marshy water. In the farthest village were the
Germans, and in the nearest, just below us down the steep cliff, our own
men. Between the two there was a narrow causeway across the marsh and a
strip of woods half a rifle-shot in length.

Behind, in a sweeping semicircle round their village and ours, were the
German trenches and the German guns. I looked into the streets of both
villages as clearly as one may see into Clovelly village from the crest
of the hill. In Vaux-sur-Somme a few British soldiers were strolling
about. One was sitting on the window-sill of a cottage, kicking up his
heels.

In the German village of Curlu the roadways were concealed by the
perspective of the houses, with their gables and chimney-stacks, so that
I could not see any passers--by. But at the top of the road, going out
of the village and standing outside the last house on the road, was a
solitary figure--a German sentry.

The French lieutenant pointed to a thin mast away from the village on
the hillside.

"Do you see that? That is their flagstaff. They hoist their flag for
victories. It wagged a good deal during the recent Russian fighting. But
lately they have not had the cheek to put it up."

This interpreter--the Baron de Rosen--laughed very heartily at that
naked pole on the hill.

Then I left him and joine