cloud at the end of the town, and disappearing round the curve by
the Town Hall. Occasionally an officer's automobile, or a car with a
couple of nurses, would intervene momentarily; and then more and
more and more auto-buses, and still more. The impression given is
that the entire French Army is passing through the town. The rattle
and the throbbing and the shaking get on my nerves. At last come
two breakdown-vans, and the procession is finished. I cannot believe
that it is really finished, but it is; and the silence is incredible.

Well, I have seen only a couple of regiments go by. Out of the
hundreds of regiments in the French Army, just two! But whence
they had come, what they had done, whither they were travelling,
what they were intended to do--nobody could tell me. They had an
air as casual and vague and aimless as a flight of birds across a
landscape.

There were more picturesque pilgrimages than that. One of the
most picturesque and touching spectacles I saw at the front was the
march of a regiment of the line into another little country town on a
very fine summer morning. First came the regimental band. The
brass instruments were tarnished; the musicians had all sorts of
paper packages tied to their knapsacks. Besides being musicians
they were real soldiers, in war-stained uniforms. They marched with
an air of fatigue. But the tune they played was bright enough.
Followed some cyclists, keeping pace with the marchers. Then an
officer on a horse. Then companies of the regiment. The stocks of
many of the rifles were wrapped in dirty rags. Every man carried all
that was his in the campaign, including a pair of field-glasses. Every
man was piled up with impedimenta--broken, torn, soiled and
cobbled impedimenta. And every man was very, very tired.