buoyant ugliness of
pioneer homes in an unsettled country, for behind them were the ruins
of the old village, fragments of blackened wall, stone chimneys filled
with accumulations of rubbish, garden-plots choked with weeds,
reminding us that here was no outpost of a new civilization, but the
desolation of an old one, fallen upon evil days.

A large crowd of _permissionnaires_ had left the train with us. We
were not at ease among these men, many of them well along in middle
life, bent and streaming with perspiration under their heavy packs. We
were much better able than most of them to carry our belongings, to
endure the fatigue of a long night march to billets or trenches; and
we were waiting for the motor in which we should ride comfortably to
our aerodrome. There we should sleep in beds, well housed from the
weather, and far out of the range of shell fire.

"It isn't fair," said J. B. "It is going to war _de luxe_. These old
poilus ought to be the aviators. But, hang it all! Of course, they
couldn't be. Aviation is a young man's business. It has to be that
way. And you can't have aerodromes along the front-line trenches."

Nevertheless, it did seem very unfair, and we were uncomfortable among
all those infantrymen. The feeling increased when attention was called
to our branch of the service by the distant booming of anti-aircraft
guns. There were shouts in the street, "A Boche!" We hurried to the
door of the cafe where we had been hiding. Officers were ordering the
crowds off the street. "Hurry along there! Under cover! Oh, I know
that you're brave enough, mon enfant. It isn't that. He's not to see
all these soldiers here. That's the reason. Allez! Vite!"

Soldiers were going into dugouts and cellars among the ruined houses.
Some of them, seeing us at the door of the cafe, made pointed remarks
as they passed, grumbling loudly at the laxity of the air service.

"It's up there you ought to be, mon vieux, not here," one of them
said, pointing to the white _eclatements_.

"You see that?" said another. "He's a Boche, not French, I can tell
you that. Where are your comrades?"

There was much good-natured chaffing as well, but through it all I
could detect a note of resentment. I sympathized with their point of
view then as I do now, although I know that there is no ground for the
complaint of laxity. Here is a German over French territory. Where are
the French aviators? Soldiers forget that aerial frontiers must be