He would have slept well, but in the night an army passed.  For hours and hours the gray legions trod by in numbers past counting, the moonlight casting gleams upon the spiked helmets.  Then came masses of Uhlans and hussars and after them batteries of great guns and scores and scores of the wicked machine guns.  Truly, as the priest had said, the whole world had gone mad.  He remembered those days in Vienna when the gay and light-head ed Viennese had marched up and down the streets all night long, singing and dancing, and thinking only of war as a festival, in which glorious victory was sure and quick.  Torrents of blood had flowed under the bridges since then, gay Austria, that had set the torch, had been shaken to its foundation, and no victory was yet in sight for anybody.

Nevertheless the German legions seemed inexhaustible.  John had seen them turned back in those long days of fighting on the Marne, and more than a million had been killed or wounded since the war began, but that avalanche of men and guns still poured out of the heart of Germany.  He felt more deeply than ever that the world could not afford a German victory, and the sanguinary spectacle of a Kaiser riding roughshod over civilization.  The fact that so many German people were likable and that Germany had achieved so much made the case all the worse.

He took the road the next morning, not on foot this time but in an empty provision wagon, returning eastward, drawn by two powerful horses and driven by Fritz, a stout German youth.  Both Hans and the hausfrau wished him well, and he soon made a friend of Fritz, who was a Bavarian from a little village near Munich.  John knew Munich better than any other German city, and he and the young German soon established a common ground of conversation, because to Fritz Munich was the greatest and finest of all cities.

That was one of the pleasantest mornings he experienced on his long and solitary quest.  His heavy clothing kept him warm, his seat was comfortable, the pace was good and Fritz was excellent company.  Fritz was a simple peasant, though, in his belief that Germany was right in everything and omnipotent, that the other nations through jealousy had conspired to destroy her, but she, instead, would destroy them all, and rule a conquered world.

John saw readily that the poison had been instilled into him from his birth by the men higher up, and he blamed Fritz very little for his misguided beliefs.  Besides, it was pleasant to have the company of one somewhat near his own age, and to listen to human talk.  There was a girl, Minna, in the village near Munich whom Fritz was going to marry as soon as the war was over.

“And that won’t be long now,” said Fritz.  “It’s true that we were halted before Paris last year, but we came again more numerous and more powerful than ever.  The Kaiser will make a finish of it all in the spring, and I shall marry Minna.  We shall go into Munich, see the beautiful city, and then go back to our home in the village.”