lost opportunities to the correspondent in this war is this fighting in
Lorraine. One had only to climb a hill in order to see everything!

In half an hour, as the officer outlined the positions, we had lived
through the two weeks' fighting; and, thanks to the fairness of his
story--that of a professional soldier without illusions--we felt that we
had been hearing history while it was very fresh.

"They are very brave and skilful, the Germans," he said. "We still
have a battery of heavy guns on the plateau. Let us go and see it."

We went, picking our way among the snow-covered shell-pits. At one
point we crossed a communication trench, where soldiers could go
and come to the guns and the infantry positions without being
exposed to shell-fire. I noticed that it carried a telephone wire.

"Yes," said the officer; "we had no ditch during the fight with the
Germans, and we were short of telephone wire for a while; so we had
to carry messages back and forth as in the old days. It was a pretty
warm kind of messenger service when the German marmites were
falling their thickest."

At length he stopped before a small mound of earth not in any way
distinctive at a short distance on the uneven surface of the plateau. I
did not even notice that there were three other such mounds. He
pointed to a hole in the ground. I had been used to going through a
manhole in a battleship turret, but not through one into a field-gun
position before aeroplanes played a part in war.

"Entrez, monsieur!"