In the quarters of the Commandant, a farm-house at the back end of the village, champagne was served, admirable champagne.  We stood round a long table, waiting till the dilatory should have arrived.  The party had somehow grown.  For example, the cure came, amid acclamations.  He related how a Lieutenant had accosted him in front of some altar and asked whether he might be allowed to celebrate the Mass.  “That depends,” said the cure.  “You cannot celebrate if you are not a priest.  If you are, you can.”  “I am a priest,” said the Lieutenant.  And he celebrated the Mass.  Also the Intendant came, a grey-haired, dour, kind-faced man.  The Intendant has charge of supplies, and he is cherished accordingly.  And in addition to the Commandant, and the Electric Man, and our Staff Captains, there were sundry non-commissioned officers, and even privates.

We were all equal.  The French Army is by far the most democratic institution I have ever seen.  On our journeys the Staff Captains and ourselves habitually ate with a sergeant and a corporal.  The corporal was the son of a General.  The sergeant was a man of business and a writer.  His first words when he met me were in English:  “Monsieur Bennett, I have read your books.”  One of our chauffeurs was a well-known printer who employs three hundred and fifty men—­when there is peace.  The relations between officers and men are simply unique.  I never saw a greeting that was not exquisite.  The officers w ere full of knowledge, decision, and appreciative kindliness.  The men were bursting with eager devotion.  This must count, perhaps even more than big guns.

The Commandant, of course, presided at the vin d’honneur.  His glance and his smile, his latent energy, would have inspired devotion in a wooden block.  Every glass touched every glass, an operation which entailed some threescore clinkings.  And while we were drinking, one of the Staff Captains—­the one whose English was the less perfect of the two—­began to tell me of the career of the Commandant, in Algeria and elsewhere.  Among other things, he had carried his wounded men on his own shoulders under fire from the field of battle to a place of safety.  He was certainly under forty; he might have been under thirty-five.

Said the Staff Captain, ingenuously translating in his mind from French to English, and speaking with slow caution, as though picking his way among the chevaux de frise of the English language: 

“There are—­very beautiful pages—­in his—­military life.”

He meant:  “II y a de tres belles pages dans sa carriere militaire.”

Which is subtly not quite the same thing.

As we left the farm-house to regain the communication trench there was a fierce, loud noise like this:  ZZZZZ ssss ZZZZ sss ZZZZ.  And then an explosion.  The observer in the captive balloon had noticed unaccustomed activity in our village, and the consequences were coming.  We saw yellow smoke rising just beyond the wall of the farmyard, about two hundred yards away.  We received instructions to hurry to the trench.  We had not gone fifty yards in the trench when there was another celestial confusion of S’s and Z’s.  Imitating the officers, we bent low in the trench.  The explosion followed.