John’s automobile could have reached Chastel in less than an hour, despite the snow and the slush, but the train of the wounded was compelled to move slowly, and he must keep with it.  Meanwhile he scanned the sky with powerful glasses, which he had been careful to secure after his escape from Auersperg.  Nearly all officers carried strong glasses in this war, and yet even to the keenest eyes the hosts of the air were visible only in part.

John now and then saw telephone wires running through the clumps of forest and across the fields.  There was a perfect web of them, reaching all the way from Alsace and the Forest of Argonne to the sea.  Generals talked to one another over them, and over these wires the signal officers sent messages to the men in the batteries telling them how to fire their guns.

The telegraph, too, was at work.  The wires were clicking everywhere, and the air was filled also with messages which went on no wires at all, but which took invisible wings unto themselves.  The wireless, despite its constant use, remained a mystery and wonder to John.  One of his most vivid memories was that night on the roof of the chateau, when Wharton talked through space to the German generals, and learned their plans.

He looked up now and his eyes were shut, but he almost fancied that he could see the words passing in clouds over his head, written on nothing, but there, nevertheless, the most mysterious and, in some ways, the most powerful part of the hosts of the air, the hosts that within a generation had changed the ways of armies and battles.  He opened his eyes and found himself searching for aeroplanes, the most tangible portion of those hosts of the air, with which man had to fight.  He saw several behind him, where the French and German lines almost met, but there was no shape resembling the Arrow.

The aeroplanes and Zeppelins had been much less active since winter had come in full tide.  They were essentially birds of sunshine and fair weather, liking but little clouds and storms.  And as the skies still looked very threatening John judged that they would not be abroad much that day.  The conditions were far from promising, as a heavy massing of the clouds in the southwest indicated more snow.

“There is Chastel, sir,” said Mallet, his chauffeur.  “You can see the steeple of the cathedral shining through the clouds.”

John’s eyes followed the pointing finger, and he caught a high gleam, although all beneath was a mass of floating gray mist.  But he knew it was a few beams of the sun piercing through the clouds and striking upon some solid object.  He put the glasses to his eyes and then he was able to discern an old, old town, standing on a cliff above a stream that he would have called a creek at home.  Some of the houses were of stone, and others were of timber and concrete, but it was evident that war had passed already over Chastel.  As he rode nearer he beheld buildings ruined by shells or fire.  Many of them seemed to be razed almost level with the ground.  The evidences of battle were everywhere.  He surmised that it had been held for a while by the Germans on their retreat from the Marne, and that the lighting there had been desperate.