In the lower ground on the near side of the stream were many small board houses arranged in a square, and these he knew were the hospital.  He would remain there until the last of the wounded were discharged, and then he would enter Chastel.  Mallet informed him that his surmises were correct and he saw for himself that the head of the train had already turned into the square around which the little board houses were built.

The transferring of the hurt, took nearly all the morning, and John faithfully performed his part.  There was Chastel only a few hundred yards away, now clearly visible despite the massive clouds that floated persistently across the sky.  Yet he made no attempt to reach it until his work was done, nor did he speak of it, not even to the chauffeur, Mallet, of whom he had made a good friend.

Near noon, the task finished, he ate luncheon and started toward Chastel.  His orders from Captain Colton allowed him much liberty, and he was not compelled to account to anyone, when he chose to enter the town.  He crossed the stream, muddy from the melting snow, on a small stone bridge, which he believed from its steep arch must date almost back to the time of the Romans, and pausing on the other side looked up once more at Chastel.  He had no doubt that, seen in the sunshine and as it was, it had been both picturesque and beautiful.  But now it lay half in ruins, under a sullen sky, and he beheld no sign of life.  Just above him within its grounds stood a large chateau, that had been riven through and through by shells.  The walls looked as if they were ready to fall apart and John shivered a little.  Farther on was a public building of some kind, destroyed by fire, all save the walls which stood, blackened and desolate, and now he saw that the cathedral too had been damaged.

A flake of snow, large and damp, settled on his hand.  The clouds were massing, directly over his head, and he feared another fall.  It was unfortunate, but nothing could drive him back, and finding a flight of stone steps he ascended them and entered the village.

Chastel had looked somber from the plain below, where some of the effect, John had thought, might be due to distance, but here it was a silent ruin, tragic and terrible.  Over this village, once so neat and trim, as he could easily see, war had swept in its most hideous fashion.  Houses were riddled and the gray light showed through them from wall to wall where the great shells had passed.  A bronze statue standing in a fountain in the center of the little place or square had been struck, and it lay prone and shattered in the water.

The first flakes of the new snow began to fall, and the sinister sky, heavy with clouds, took on the darkness of twilight, although night was far away.  Yet the huge rents and holes in the houses and the fallen masonry seemed to grow more distinct in the gloom.  The village consisted chiefly of one long street, and as John looked up and down it, he did not see a single human being.  Nothing was visible to him but the iron hoof of war crushing everything under it, and he shuddered violently.