to the southeast of us and to the northwest was a line some two hundred miles long, measuring it from tip to tip, where sundry millions of men in English khaki and French fustian and German shoddy-wools were fighting the biggest fight and the most prolonged fight and the most stubborn fight that historians probably will write down as having been fought in this war or any lesser war.  I knew this fight had been going on for weeks now back and forth upon the River Aisne and would certainly go on for weeks and perhaps months more to come.  I knew these things because I had been told them; but I shouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been told.  I shouldn’t even have guessed it.

I recall that we traveled at a cup-racing clip along a road that first wound like a coiling snake and then straightened like a striking snake, and that always we traveled through dust so thick it made a fog.  In this chalky land of northern France the brittle soil dries out after a rain very quickly, and turns into a white powder where there are wheels to churn it up and grit it fine.  Here surely there was an abundance of wheels.  We passed many marching men and many lumbering supply trains which were going our way, and we met many motor ambulances and many ammunition trucks which were coming back.  Always the ambulances were full and the ammunition wagons were empty.  I judge an expert in these things might by the fullness of the one and the emptiness of the other gauge the emphasis with which the fight ahead went on.  The drivers of the trucks nearly all wore captured French caps and French uniform coats, which adornment the marching men invariably regarded as a quaint jest to be laughed at and cheered for.

We stopped at our appointed place, which was on the top of a ridge where a general of a corps had his headquarters.  From here one had a view—­a fair view and, roughly, a fan-shaped view—­of certain highly important artillery operations.  Likewise, the eminence, gentle and gradual as it was, commanded a mile-long stretch of the road, which formed the main line of communication between the front and the base; and these two facts in part explained why the general had made this his abiding place.  Even my layman’s mind could sense the reasons for establishing headquarters at such a spot.

As for the general, he and his staff, at the moment of our arrival in their midst, were stationed at the edge of a scanty woodland where telescopes stood and a table with maps and charts on it.  Quite with the manner of men who had nothing to do except to enjoy the sunshine and breathe the fresh air, they strolled back and forth in pairs and trios.  I think it must have been through force of habit that, when they halted to turn about and retrace the route, they stopped always for a moment or two and faced southward.  It was from the southward that there came rolling up to us the sounds of a bellowing chorus of gunfire—­a Wagnerian chorus, truly.  That perhaps was as it should be.  Wagner’s