Frenchmen with ready words, quick, telling gestures, pouring out their
volume of thanks as the car sped by and we tossed out our
newspapers at intervals, so that all should have a look.

An Echo de Paris that fell into the road was the centre of a flag-rush,
which included an officer. Most un-military--an officer scrambling at
the same time as his men! In the name of the Kaiser, what discipline!

Then the car stopped long enough for me to see a private give the
paper to his officer, who was plainly sensible of a loss of dignity, with
a courtesy which said, "A thousand pardons, mon capitaine!" and the
capitaine began reading the newspaper aloud to his men. Scores of
human touches which were French, republican, democratic!

With half our cigarettes gone, we fell in with some brown-skinned,
native African troops, the Mohammedan Turcos. Their white teeth
gleaming, their black eyes devilishly eager, they began climbing on to
the car. We gave them all the cigarettes in sight; but fortunately our
reserve supply was not visible, and an officer's sharp command
saved us from being invested by storm.

As we came into Soissons we left the reserves behind. They were
kept back out of range of the German shells, making the town a dead
space between them and the firing-line, which was beyond. When the
Germans retreated through the streets the French had taken care, as
it was their town, to keep their fire away from the cathedral and the
main square to the outskirts and along the river. Not so the German
guns when the French infantry passed through. Soissons was not a
German town.