University of Virginia Library

SUPPORTS AND RESERVES

Then we had to work our way, department by department, against the tides of men behind the line--supports

and their supports, reserves and reserves of reserves, as well as the masses in training. They flooded towns and villages, and when we tried short-cuts we found them in every by-lane. Have you seen mounted men reading their home letters with the reins thrown on the horses' necks, moving in absorbed silence through a street which almost said "Hush!" to its dogs; or met, in a forest, a procession of perfectly new big guns, apparently taking themselves from the foundry to the front?

In spite of their love of drama, there is not much "window-dressing" in the French character. The Boche, who is the priest of the Higher Counter-jumpery, would have had half the neutral Press out in cars to

advertise these vast spectacles of men and material. But the same instinct as makes their rich farmers keep to their smocks makes the French keep quiet.

"This is our affair," they argue. "Everybody concerned is taking part in it. Like the review you saw the other day, there are no spectators."

"But it might be of advantage if the world knew."

Mine was a foolish remark. There is only one world to-day, the world of the Allies. Each of them knows what the others are doing and--the rest doesn't matter. This is a curious but delightful fact to realize at first hand. And think what it will be later, when we shall all circulate among each other and open our hearts

and talk it over in a brotherhood more intimate than the ties of blood!

I lay that night at a little French town, and was kept awake by a man, somewhere in the hot, still darkness, howling aloud from the pain of his wounds. I was glad that he was alone, for when one man gives way the others sometimes follow. Yet the single note of misery was worse than the baying and gulping of a whole ward. I wished that a delegation of strikers could have heard it.

. . . . . . .

That a civilian should be in the war zone at all is a fair guarantee of his good faith. It is when he is outside the zone unchaperoned that questions begin, and the permits are looked into. If these are irregular--

but one doesn't care to contemplate it. If regular, there are still a few counter-checks. As the sergeant at the railway station said when he helped us out of an impasse: "You will realize that it is the most undesirable persons whose papers are of the most regular. It is their business you see. The Commissary of Police is at the Hotel de Ville, if you will come along for the little formality. Myself, I used to keep a shop in Paris. My God, these provincial towns are desolating!"