hordes._

A little way up the ascent to Mousson we left the motor behind a bit
of rising ground. The road is raked by the German lines, and stray
pedestrians (unless in a group) are less liable than a motor to have
a shell spent on them. We climbed under a driving grey sky which
swept gusts of rain across our road. In the lee of the castle we
stopped to look down at the valley of the Moselle, the slate roofs
of Pont-a-Mousson and the broken bridge which once linked
together the two sides of the town. Nothing but the wreck of the
bridge showed that we were on the edge of war. The wind was too high
for firing, and we saw no reason for believing that the wood just
behind the Hospice roof at our feet was seamed with German trenches
and bristling with guns, or that from every slope across the valley
the eye of the cannon sleeplessly glared. But there the Germans
were, drawing an iron ring about three sides of the watch-tower; and
as one peered through an embrasure of the ancient walls one
gradually found one's self re-living the sensations of the little
mediaeval burgh as it looked out on some earlier circle of
besiegers. The longer one looked, the more oppressive and menacing
the invisibility of the foe became. "_There_ they are--and
_there_--and _there._" We strained our eyes obediently, but saw only
calm hillsides, dozing farms. It was as if the earth itself were the
enemy, as if the hordes of evil were in the clods and grass-blades.
Only one conical hill close by showed an odd artificial patterning,
like the work of huge ants who had scarred it with criss-cross
ridges. We were told that these were French trenches, but they
looked much more like the harmless traces of a prehistoric camp.

Suddenly an officer, pointing to the west of the trenched hill said: