“Boys,” said Owens, “there’s a squad of Blue Devils camped over here in an old barn.  Just back from the front.  Some one said there wasn’t a man in it who hadn’t had a dozen wounds, and some twice that many.  We must see that bunch.  Bravest soldiers of the whole war!  They’ve been through the three years—­at Verdun—­on the Marne—­and now this awful Flanders drive.  It’s up to us to see them.”

News like this thrilled Dorn.  During all the months he had been in France the deeds and valor of these German-named Blue Devils had come to him, here and there and everywhere.  Dorn remembered all he heard, and believed it, too, though some of the charges and some of the burdens attributed to these famed soldiers seemed unbelievable.  His opportunity had now come.  With the moving up to the front he would meet reality; and all within him, the keen, strange eagerness, the curiosity that perplexed, the unintelligible longing, the heat and burn of passion, quickened and intensified.

Not until late in the afternoon, however, did off duty present an opportunity for him to go into the village.  It looked the same as the other villages he had visited, and the inhabitants, old men, old women and children, all had the somber eyes, the strained, hungry faces, the oppressed look he had become accustomed to see.  But sad as were these inhabitants of a village near the front, there was never in any one of them any absence of welcome to the Americans.  Indeed, in most people he met there was a quick flashing of intense joy and gratitude.  The Americans had come across the sea to fight beside the French.  That was the import, tremendous and beautiful.

Dorn met Dixon and Rogers on the main street of the little village.  They had been to see the Blue Devils.

“Better stay away from them,” advised Dixon, dubiously.

“No!...  Why?” ejaculated Dorn.

Dixon shook his head.  “Greatest bunch I ever looked at.  But I think they resented our presence.  Pat and I were talking about them.  It’s strange, Dorn, but I believe these Blue Devils that have saved France and England, and perhaps America, too, don’t like our being here.”

“Impossible!” replied Dorn.

“Go and see for yourself,” put in Rogers.  “I believe we all ought to look them over.”

Thoughtfully Dorn strode on in the direction indicated, and presently he arrived at the end of the village, where in an old orchard he found a low, rambling, dilapidated barn, before which clusters of soldiers in blue lounged around smoking fires.  As he drew closer he saw that most of them seemed fixed in gloomy abstraction.  A few were employed at some task of hand, and several bent over the pots on fires.  Dorn’s sweeping gaze took in the whole scene, and his first quick, strange impression was that these soldiers resembled ghouls who had lived in dark holes of mud.