The valley held and increased the sounds till they seemed to
hit our hillside like a sea.
A change of light showed a village, exquisitely pencilled atop
of a hill, with reddish haze at its feet.
"What is that place?" I asked.
The priest replied in a voice as deep as an organ: "That is
Saint------ It is in the Boche lines. Its condition is
pitiable."
The thunders and the smokes rolled up and diminished and
renewed themselves, but the small children romped up and down
the old stone steps; the beginner's aeroplane unsteadily
chased its own shadow over the fields; and the soldiers in
billet asked the band for their favourite tunes.
Said the lieutenant of local Guards as the cars went on:
"She--play--Tipperary."
And she did--to an accompaniment of heavy pieces in the hills,
which followed us into a town all ringed with enormous
searchlights, French and Boche together, scowling at each
other beneath the stars.
. . . .
It happened about that time that Lord Kitchener with General
Joffre reviewed a French Army Corps.
We came on it in a vast dip of ground under grey clouds, as
one comes suddenly on water; for it lay out in misty blue
lakes of men mixed with darker patches, like osiers and
undergrowth, of guns, horses, and wagons. A straight road cut
the landscape in two along its murmuring front.