battered town on the edge of the hills. From there we wound up
through a narrowing valley, under wooded cliffs, to a little
settlement where the Colonel of the Brigade was to be found. There
was a short conference between the Colonel and our staff-officer,
and then we annexed a Captain of Chasseurs and spun away again. Our
road lay through a town so exposed that our companion from
Head-quarters suggested the advisability of avoiding it; but our
guide hadn't the heart to inflict such a disappointment on his new
acquaintances. "Oh, we won't stop the motor--we'll just dash
through," he said indulgently; and in the excess of his indulgence
he even permitted us to dash slowly.

Oh, that poor town--when we reached it, along a road ploughed with
fresh obus-holes, I didn't want to stop the motor; I wanted to hurry
on and blot the picture from my memory! It was doubly sad to look at
because of the fact that it wasn't _quite dead;_ faint spasms of
life still quivered through it. A few children played in the ravaged
streets; a few pale mothers watched them from cellar doorways. "They
oughtn't to be here," our guide explained; "but about a hundred and
fifty begged so hard to stay that the General gave them leave. The
officer in command has an eye on them, and whenever he gives the
signal they dive down into their burrows. He says they are perfectly
obedient. It was he who asked that they might stay..."

Up and up into the hills. The vision of human pain and ruin was lost
in beauty. We were among the firs, and the air was full of balm. The
mossy banks gave out a scent of rain, and little water-falls from
the heights set the branches trembling over secret pools. At each
turn of the road, forest, and always more forest, climbing with us
as we climbed, and dropped away from us to narrow valleys that