road! And thus, if one would see the whole it must be in bits along the
roads, when not on the firing-line. They were sprawling in the fields in
the genial afternoon sun, looking as if they had no concern except to
rest. Uniforms dusty and faces tanned and bearded told their story of
the last month.

The duty of a portion of a force is always to wait on what is being
done by the others at the front. These were waiting near a fork which
could take them to the right or the left, as the situation demanded. At
the rear, their supply of small arms ammunition; in front, caissons of
shells for a battery speaking from the woods near by; a troop of
cavalry drawn up, the men dismounted, ready; and ahead of them
more reserves ready; everything ready.

This was where the general wanted the body of men and equipment
to be, and here they were. There were no dragging ends in the rear,
so far as I could see; nobody complaining that food or ammunition
was not up; no aide looking for somebody who could not be found; no
excited staff officer rushing about shouting for somebody to look
sharp for somebody had made a mistake. The thing was unwarlike; it
was like a particularly well-thought-out route march. Yet at the word
that company of cavalry might be in the thick of it, at the point where
they were wanted; the infantry rushing to the support of the firing-line;
the motor transport facing around for withdrawal, if need be. It was
only a little way, indeed, into the zone of death from the rear of that
compact column. Thousands of such compact bodies on many
roads, each seemingly a force by itself and each a part of the whole,
which could be a dependable whole only when every part was ready,
alert, and where it belonged! Nothing can be left to chance in a battle-
line three hundred miles long. The general must know what to