shapeless between the hills, as all towns were left that stood in the
path of the armies. The cathedral alone reared its battered bulk in the
midst; a resisting pile, its two grim and blunted towers frowning into
the sky. Nobly Gothic through all the shattering, the great church rose
out of the wreckage, with flying buttresses still outspread like
brooding wings to the dead houses that had sunk about her.

But Noyon was not dead. We of the Red Cross knew that. We knew that in
cellars and nooks of this labyrinth of ruin already hundreds of hearts
were beating. On this calm September morning the newly cleared streets
resounded with the healthful music of hammer and saw, and cartwheels
rattled over the cobblestones, while workmen called to each other in
resonant voices. Pregnant sounds, these, the significance of which we
could estimate. For we had seen Noyon in the early months of the
armistice: tangled and monstrous in her attitude of falling, and silent
with the bleeding silence of desertion. Then, one memorable day, the
stillness had been broken by the first clatter of sabots--that wooden
noise, measured, unmistakable, approaching. Two pairs of sabots and a
long road. Two broad backs bent under bulging loads; an infant's wail; a
knock at the Red Cross Door--but that was nearly eight months before.

The _Poste de Secours_ was closed for the first time since Madame de
Vigny and her three young _infirmières_ had come to Noyon. Two women
stood without, one plump and bareheaded, the other aged and bent, with a
calico handkerchief tied over her hair. They stared at the printed card
tacked upon the entrance of the large patched-up house that served as
Headquarters for the French Red Cross.

"_Tiens! c'est fermé_," exclaimed Madame Talon, shaking the rough board
door with all her meagre weight, "and I have walked eight kilometers to