"I hope to do so, sir."

We walked down the long straight road toward the ruins of Vermelles
with a young soldier-guide who on the outskirts of the village
remarked in a casual way:

"No one is allowed along this road in daylight, as a rule. It's under
hobservation of the henemy."

"Then why the devil did you come this way?" asked my companion.

"I thought you might prefer the short cut, sir."

We explored the ruins of Vermelles, where many young Frenchmen had
fallen in fighting through the walls and gardens. One could see the
track of their strife, in trampled bushes and broken walls. Bits of
red rag--the red pantaloons of the first French soldiers--were still
fastened to brambles and barbed wire. Broken rifles, cartouches,
water-bottles, torn letters, twisted bayonets, and German stick-bombs
littered the ditches which had been dug as trenches across streets of
burned-out houses.




V


A young gunner officer whom we met was very civil, and stopped in
front of the chateau of Vermelles, a big red villa with the outer