that four American correspondents should come looking for war in a
taxicab, and should find it too. He beat himself on his flanks in the
excess of his joy, and called up half a dozen friends to hear the
amazing tale; and they enjoyed it too.

He said he felt sure his adjutant would appreciate the joke; and, as
incidentally his adjutant was the person in all the world we wanted most
just then to see, we went with him to headquarters, which was a mile
away in the local Palais de Justice--or, as we should say in America,
the courthouse. By now it was good and dark; and as no street lamps
burned we walked through a street that was like a tunnel for blackness.

The roadway was full of infantry still pressing forward to a camping
place somewhere beyond the town. We could just make out the shadowy
shapes of the men, but their feet made a noise like thunderclaps, and
they sang a German marching song with a splendid lilt and swing to it.

"Just listen!" said the captain proudly. "They are always like that--
they march all day and half the night, and never do they grow weary.
They are in fine spirits--our men. And we can hardly hold them back.
They will go forward--always forward!

"In this war we have no such command as Retreat! That word we have
blotted out. Either we shall go forward or we shall die! We do not
expect to fall back, ever. The men know this; and if our generals would
but let them they would run to Paris instead of walking there."

I think it was not altogether through vainglory he spoke. He was not a
bombastic sort. I think he voiced the intent of the army to which he
belonged.