The headquarters building was ironically called the “chateau.”  It had been built by officers and men, of fresh boards and lined neatly inside with newspapers.  Some of them were illustrated French papers.  It had much the appearance of a Western shack during the early days of the gold fever.  On one of the walls was a war map of the Eastern front, the line a cord fastened into place with flag pins.  The last time I had seen such a map of the Eastern front was in the Cabinet Room at Washington.

A large stove in the centre of the room heated the building, which was both light and warm.  Some fifteen officers received us.  I was the only woman who had been so near the front, for out here there are no nurses.  One by one they were introduced and bowed.  There were fifteen hosts and extremely few guests!

Having had telephone notice of our arrival, they showed me how carefully they had prepared for it.  The long desk was in beautiful order; floors gleamed snow white; the lamp chimneys were polished.  There were sandwiches and tea ready to be served.

In one room was the telephone exchange, which connected the headquarters with every part of the line.  In another, a long line of American typewriters and mimeographing machines wrote out and copied the orders which were regularly distributed to the front.

“Will you see our museum?” said a tall officer, who spoke beautiful English.  His mother was an Englishwoman.  So I was taken into another room and shown various relics of the battlefield—­pieces of shells, rifles and bullets.

“Early German shells,” said the officer who spoke English, “were like this.  You see how finely they splintered.  The later ones are not so good; the material is inferior, and here is an aluminum nose which shows how scarce copper is becoming in Germany to-day.”

I have often thought of that visit to the “chateau,” of the beautiful courtesy of those Belgian officers, their hospitality, their eagerness to make an American woman comfortable and at home.  And I was to have still further proof of their kindly feeling, for when toward daylight I came back from the trenches they were still up, the lamps were still burning brightly, the stove was red hot and cheerful, and they had provided food for us against the chill of the winter dawn.  Out through the mud and into the machine again.  And now we were very near the trenches.  The car went without lights and slowly.  A foot off the centre of the road would have made an end to the excursion.

We began to pass men, long lines of them standing in the drenching rain to let us by.  They crowded close against the car to avoid the seas of mud.  Sometimes they grumbled a little, but mostly they were entirely silent.  That is the thing that impressed me always about the lines of soldiers I saw going to and from the trenches—­their silence.  Even their feet made no noise.  They loomed up like black shadows which the night swallowed immediately.