continual sound of firing we might have been anywhere.

We were held up by a sentry further on, and he demanded the _mot de
jour_. I leant out of the car (it always has to be whispered) and
murmured "Gustave" in a low voice into his ear. "_Non, Mademoiselle_,"
he said sadly, "_pas ça_." "Does he mean it isn't his own Christian
name?" I asked myself. Still it was the name we had been given at the
État Major as the pass word. I repeated it again with the same result.
"I assure you the Colonel himself at C---- gave it to me," I added
desperately. He still shook his head, and then I remembered that some
days they had names of people and others the names of places, and
perhaps I had been given the wrong one. "Paris" I hazarded. He again
shook his head, and I decided to be firm and in a voice of conviction
said, "Allons, c'est 'Arras,' alors." He looked doubtful, and said,
"Perhaps with the English it is that to-day." He was giving me a
loophole and I responded with fervour, "Yes, yes, assuredly it is
'Arras' with the English," and he waved us past. I thought regretfully
how easily a German spy might bluff the sentry in a similar manner.

Time being precious I salved my conscience about it as we drew up in
Pervyse and decided to make tea. I saw a movement among the ruins and
there, peeping round one of the walls, was a ragged hungry looking
infant about eight years of age. We made towards him, but he fled, and
picking our way over the ruins we actually found a family in residence
in a miserable hovel behind the onetime Hôtel de Ville. There was an old
couple, man and wife, and a flock of ragged children, the remnants of
different families which had been wiped out. They only spoke Flemish and
I brought out the few sentences I knew, whereupon the old dame seized my
arm and poured out such a flow of words that I was quite at a loss to
know what she meant. I did gather, however, that she had a niece of