Every few yards there was a shaft leading down from the trench into a dugout, and in each of these dugouts there lay rifles and bandoliers and gas masks, hastily abandoned by the enemy; and sometimes these dugouts were sealed by the explosion of a shell, and in them there lay those who had been killed or buried alive.

And so we came to where the dead still lay unburied; the human creature with all his potentialities reduced to that which had better remain undescribed. . . .

We still went on, and as I turned to look back I found that I was alone with C, an officer of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, who strode on before me gay and exultant.

"We are about 300 meters now from the Boche; let us see what's happening," said he, and climbing a little way up the broken wall of the trench, he looked out upon the howling waste.

It was the same tragic scene that had met our eyes since first we embarked upon this journey - but more deadly, more intense in its mournful expression. The increasing battle, the loud explosions of the shells, the rattle of the machine-guns, the German planes venturing here and there within our reach, the rising columns and masses of black smoke, the dead men lying below, gave me an impression that can never fade of the hell into which the best and bravest of the world go with a smile.

And then a little incident occurred which brought the scene to a sort of personal climax. For as I stood here, absorbed in its detail, I saw approaching me, racing across the gray waste, like some footballer dashing for his goal, a small black creature, clearly visible, swaying from side to side, yet furiously intent upon its course. I dropped into the trench to the sound of a smashing explosion; a shower of mud, and a heavy fall as de V, who had been following us, rolled over at my feet.

"Nous l'avons échappé belle," laughed C―, brushing the mud from his tunic, and as I did the same a small warm object fell from the folds of my coat.

"It was the wind of the damned thing that knocked me over," said de V —, picking himself up, somewhat abashed. We found the shell on the lip of the trench fuming as if with rage at having failed of its purpose.

We were evidently in luck; for Mr. Bass, of an American paper an old campaigner who carries with him a wound from the Russian front-who should have been where it fell, had fortunately dropped a couple of yards behind. The rest of our party, farther off, seeing the shell fall, retired to a dugout, assured that we should never meet again. A pause of a second or two a yard this way or that, such is the interval between all that life means to us and the bleak oblivion of death.

It is a risk that the soldier at the Front takes every day of his life.

"Don't be distressed for me if I fall," says he, writing to mother or wife, "it is a glorious death to die."

We ate our lunch in an underground mansion, which for the past two years had been the home of a German General and his Staff. And when we had finished, we climbed out into the open again to find François Flameng, with his fresh face and cheery air, his blue trench helmet on his head, and a pipe in the corner of his mouth, painting the villa. The French officers of our party were delighted to see him. There was much hand-shaking and friendly chaff, and we had the honor of being introduced to the painter.

It seems that M. Flameng has permission to go where he likes and to paint whatever pleases his eye. Since the beginning of the War he has been busy in this way, and there is no one better known in trench and camp than this distinguished and joyous personage. It was a great and a very unexpected pleasure to see him at work.

The scene amidst which these events transpired was of an impressive character. Above it there rose in its tragic and

misshapen lines the gaunt skeleton of a wood. At one end of it there was a cemetery of new-made graves, each with its wooden cross and simple inscription: "Guyot PierreSoldier of France"-"Lieutenant M- an affectionate tribute from his Company." Beside them stood a tall man in a long buff coat with his cassock peeping from under it, a trench helmet on his head, and a face like that of Christ, with his blond beard and gentle eyes. Next to him stood the Divisional Surgeon, a humorous character: "Un vrai type," said an officer, laughing at his singular manner and speech; about them there moved upon their varied business the French infantry, hardy and matter-of-fact.

With a sudden whir an aëroplane came flying over the tree tops, almost brushing them with its wings. And beyond these the heavy batteries roared their menace, and the ground shook with their wrath. It was a beautiful sight, too, in its way the low concealed valley; the blue figures moving amongst the trees; the Battery Commanders, cool and icy in their places of control, their clear, peremptory voices cleaving the welter of sound; the men at the guns like stokers at a furnace; the sudden flash, the bursting roar, the recoil; and in the gray sky, visible to the eye, the messenger of Death upon his way. Over all, ceaseless in their brooding, the French aviators flying low over the field of vision, the eyes of France fixed upon the enemy.

We met the General at work in his dugout in another part of the field. It was another habitation to that of his German rival. "Voilà mon Cabinet de travail," said he, ushering me into the smallest of little rooms by the roadside, with a table in it, a chair, a telephone, and a staff-map upon the wall. Some steps cut in the mud led down to his bedroom, which was like a steamer cabin. The bulb of an electric light hung beside his bed. "A present from the Boche," he said. Next door his Staff were at work, the telephone was constantly in action, and a dispatch rider occasionally came peppering up the road.

We climbed up into the field above. The same desolate waste, the same mournful void that war creates wherever it places its deadly hand. Upon the skyline I could see the faint outlines of the Bois de Trones, by which I had stood on the day of the British battle. French and English, hand in hand, good friends and loyal comrades, we go forward, never doubting, to the ultimate goal, sealing our compact with the blood of our peoples.

Can we ever forget them, or they us?

And then, as I stood here with the General - a man of the old type, vivid and martial, a soldier of France - some homing pigeons came flying through the gray sky, gentle of wing and faithful to their cause; and out of the tarnished waste a lark rose singing into the heavens, above the griefs and the turmoil of men, unconscious of the tragedy about her.

DINANT LA MORTE1

CAMILLE DAVID

In the early days of September the terrible news began to circulate in Brussels: "Dinant is razed to the ground! Its inhabitants have been either massacred or deported! Famine reigns amongst the people who are left!" This was a few days after Louvain, and the general depression made us loth to believe in a fresh misfortune. Yet the refugees gave exact details, and their grief was so sincere and their condition so wretched that we were finally convinced. One morning, desiring to see for ourselves, we started out for the place of martyrdom, making a terrible pilgrimage through the devastated countryside and burnt villages.

I had last seen Dinant on August 15th, when I watched the battle from the heights of Anhée as it raged from one hill to the next above the town. Now we found ourselves there once more, or rather on the site where Dinant had been. Under the citadel, which overhung the rock, was a hole. The old belltower of the thirteenth century cathedral, which had been built on the ruins of a Roman temple, was broken down. The tower looked pitiable like a body without a head. The old houses which gave to the bright little town its archaic look and, withal, a note of unique gayety, were nothing but ruins, their scorched walls and tottering gables revealing the naked rocks behind. We went into the St. Médard quarter, which had been raked by fire and shell. The National Bank, the station, and a few houses are still standing; but their interiors show traces of unbridled pillage. In order to get at the safe in the bank the bandits had made a hole in the wall large enough for a man to pass through.

1 From Contemporary Review, August, 1915. Reprinted by permission.