But not for long could we escape the touch of war.  That grim etcher was at work upon the road and the whole countryside.  As we went on we were bound to move more slowly, because of the congestion of the traffic.  Never was Piccadilly or Fifth Avenue more crowded with motors at the busiest hour of the day than was that road.  As we passed through villages or came to cross roads we saw military police, directing traffic, precisely as they do at busy intersections of crowded streets in London or New York.

But the traffic along that road was not the traffic of the cities.  Here were no ladies, gorgeously clad, reclining in their luxurious, deeply upholstered cars.  Here were no footmen and chauffeurs in livery.  Ah, they wore a livery—­aye!  But it was the livery of glory—­ the khaki of the King!  Generals and high officers passed us, bowling along, lolling in their cars, taking their few brief minutes or half hours of ease, smoking and talking.  They corresponded to the limousines and landaulets of the cities.  And there were wagons from the shops—­great trucks, carrying supplies, going along at a pace that racked their engines and their bodies, and that boded disaster to whoever got in their way.  But no one did—­there was no real confusion here, despite the seeming madness of the welter of traffic that we saw.

What a traffic that was!  And it was all the traffic of the carnage we were nearing.  It was a marvelous and an impressive panorama of force and of destruction that we saw it was being constantly unrolled before my wondering eyes as we traveled along the road out of old Boulogne.

At first all the traffic was going our way.  Sometimes there came a warning shriek from behind, and everything drew to one side to make room for a dispatch rider on a motor cycle.  These had the right of way.  Sir Douglas Haig himself, were he driving along, would see his driver turn out to make way for one of those shrieking motor bikes!  The rule is absolute—­everything makes way for them.

But it was not long before a tide of traffic began to meet us, flowing back toward Boulogne.  There was a double stream then, and I wondered how collisions and traffic jams of all sorts could be avoided.  I do not know yet; I only know that there is no trouble.  Here were empty trucks, speeding back for new loads.  And some there were that carried all sorts of wreckage—­the flotsam and jetsam cast up on the safe shores behind the front by the red tide of war.  Nothing is thrown away out there; nothing is wasted.  Great piles of discarded shoes are brought back to be made over.  They are as good as new when they come back from the factories where they are worked over.  Indeed, the men told me they were better than new, because they were less trying to their feet, and did not need so much breaking in.

Men go about, behind the front, and after a battle, picking up everything that has been thrown away.  Everything is sorted and gone over with the utmost care.  Rifles that have been thrown away or dropped when men were wounded or killed, bits of uniforms, bayonets—­ everything is saved.  Reclamation is the order of the day.  There is waste enough in war that cannot be avoided; the British army sees to it that there is none that is avoidable.