“I sold my last horse and the automobiles and trains are not for me.  I know that the army needs all the space in them and I ask nothing.”

“Fare on then,” said von Boehlen.  “Your papers are in good condition and you’ll have no trouble in reaching Metz.  But be sure you don’t lose your passport.”

The injunction was kindly and John, thanking him, took up the road.  Von Boehlen and his Uhlans rode on, and John looked back once.  He caught a single glimpse of the colonel’s broad shoulders and then the long column of horsemen rode by.  There was no military pomp about them now.  Their gray uniforms were worn and stained and many of the men sagged in their saddles with weariness.  Not a few showed wounds barely healed.

The cavalry were followed by infantry, and batteries of guns so heavy that often the wheels sank in the paved road.  Sometimes the troops sang, pouring forth the mighty rolling choruses of the German national songs and hymns.  The gay air as of sure victory just ahead that marked them in the closing months of summer the year before had departed, but in its place was a grim resolution that made them seem to John as formidable as ever.  The steady beat of solid German feet made a rolling sound which the orders of officers and the creaking of wagons and artillery scarcely disturbed.  The waves of the gray sea swept steadily on toward France.

John showed his passport twice more, but all that day he beheld marching troops.  In the afternoon it snowed a little again and the slush was everywhere, but he trudged bravely through it.  Having escaped from the trenches he felt that he could endure anything.  What were snow, a gray sky and a cold wind to one who had lived for months on a floor of earth and between narrow walls of half-frozen mud?  He was like a prisoner who had escaped from a steel cage.

Toward dark he turned from the road and sought refuge at a low but rather large farmhouse, standing among trees.  He modestly made his way to the rear, and asked shelter for the night in the stable, saying that he would pay.  He learned that the place was occupied by people bearing the German name of Gratz, which however signified little on that borderland, which at different times had been under both German and French rule.

Nor did the proprietor of the house himself, who came out to see him, enlighten him concerning his sympathies.  If he liked France obviously it was no time for him to say so when he was surrounded by the German legions.  But John could sleep on the hay in the stable, and have supper and breakfast for certain number of marks or francs which he must show in advance.  He showed them and all was well.

John, after carefully scraping all the mud and snow from his boots was allowed to go in the big kitchen and sit on a stone bench beside the wall, while two stout women cooked at a great furnace, and trim maids came for the food which they took upstairs.