Though I have often seen it, the Cross on the sleeve-band of a man who bears a revolver in his belt, or a rifle on his arm, has always struck me as a most incongruous thing.  The noncommissioned officer in charge of the squad—­chief orderly I suppose you might call him—­held by leashes four Red Cross dogs.

In Belgium, back in August, I had seen so-called dog batteries.  Going into Louvain on the day the Belgian Army, or what was left of it, fell back into Brussels, I passed a valley where many dogs were hitched to small machine guns; and I could not help wondering what would happen to the artillery formation, and what to the discipline of the pack, if a rabbit should choose that moment for darting across the battle front.

These, however, were the first dogs I had found engaged in hospital-corps employment.  They were big, wolfish-looking hounds, shaggy and sharp-nosed; and each of the four wore a collar of bells on his neck, and a cloth harness on his shoulders, with the red Maltese cross displayed on its top and sides.  Their business was to go to the place where fighting had taken place and search out the fallen.

At this business they were reputed to be highly efficient.  The Germans had found them especially useful; for the German field uniform, which has the merit of merging into the natural background at a short distance, becomes, through that very protective coloration, a disadvantage when its wearer drops wounded and unconscious on the open field.  In a poor light the litter bearers might search within a few rods of him and never see him; but where the faulty eyesight fails the nose of the dog sniffs the human taint in the air, and the dog makes the work of rescue thorough and complete.  At least we were told so.

Presently our automobile rounded a bend in the road, and the observation balloon, which until that moment we had been unable to glimpse, by reason of an intervening formation of ridges, revealed itself before us.  The suddenness of its appearance was startling.  We did not see it until we were within a hundred yards of it.  At once we realized how perfect an abiding place this was for a thing which offered so fine and looming a target.

Moreover, the balloon was most effectively guarded against attack at close range.  We became aware of that fact when we dismounted from the automobile and were clambering up the steep bank alongside.  Soldiers materialized from everywhere, like dusty specters, but fell back, saluting, when they saw that officers accompanied us.  On advice we had already thrown away our lighted cigars; but two noncommissioned officers felt it to be their bounden duty to warn us against striking matches in that neighborhood.  You dare not take chances with a woven bag that is packed with many hundred cubic feet of gas.

At the moment of our arrival the balloon was drawn down so near the earth that its distorted bottommost extremity dipped and twisted slackly within fifty or sixty feet of the grass.