The Marne

he feet. The room was still dark, and through the s

tep lively!" Jacks ordered,

and nearer to the ravaged spot of earth where Paul Gantier slept his faithful sle

dawn. The birds flew up with frightened cries from the trees along the roadside; rooks cawed thei

r-cycles zigzagging through the tangle of vehicles. The movement seemed more feverish and uncertain than usual, and now and then the road was jammed, and curses, shouts and the crack of heavy whips sounded against the incessant cannonade that hung its iron curtain above the hills to the north-east

y's ambulance, and he felt the unmistakable wrench of the steering-gear.

tes they saw that they were stranded beyond remedy. Tears of anger rushed into T

s the sharper of the two, was to get a lift to the nearest town, and try to bring back a spa

he would be caught on the way and turned on to some more pressing job. He knew, and Troy knew, that their ambulance was for the time being a hopeless wreck, and wo

ow far he was from the front; but the front, at that point, was a wavering and incalculable line. He had an idea that the fighting was much nearer than he or Jack

vious morning. He re-read it with a mournful smile. "Of course we all know the Allies must win; but the preparations here seem so slow and blundering; and the Ger

e know! He wondered that he had not suspected, under her mocking indifference, an ardour as deep as his own, and he was ashamed of having judged her as others had, when, for so long, the thought of her had been his torment and his joy. Where was she now, he wondered? Probably

n the ruins of the world. He knew that her motives, so jealously concealed, must have been as pure and urgent as his own. France, which she hardly knew, had merely guessed at through the golden blur of a six weeks' midsummer trip, France had drawn

egan to blend with the cannonade in his whirling brain. Suddenly he fancied the Germans were upon him.

and rubbed

a few were in the carts: the greater number were flying on their feet, the women carrying their babies, the old people bent under preposterous bundles, blankets, garden utensils, cages with rabbits, an agricultural prize frame

s, and the horror of the shell-roar in their eyes.... One of them stopped near Troy, and in a thick voice begged for a drink ... just a drop of anything, for Gods sake. Others followed, pleading for food a

promptu canteen. But the people who had clustered about him were pushed forward by others cry

and without asking leave scrambled in and pulled his wife after him. They fell like logs on to the grey blankets, and a livid te

ad. It was a deep continuous rumble, the rhythmic growl of a long train of army-trucks. The way must have be

in sight, huge square olive-brown motor-trucks stacked high with scores and scores of rosy soldi

k shout went up. The rosy soldiers shouted back, but their faces were grave and set. It was cl

alled out, pointing backward over his bandaged

own lungs. A few miles off the battle of the Marne was being fought again, and here we

f him, marking time, and the lads leaning over its side h

cried one, as the tru

e lying close by in the dust of the roadside. He supposed it belo

rs. Furtively he had pulled the ambulance badge from his collar ... but a moment later he understood the usel