“No,” said Lord James Ivor, “It was the other way around.  ’Methinks that one Englishman on five pairs of French legs did walk.’”

“I’m not so sure about the number, either,” interjected Wharton.  “Are you positive it was five?”

“Whatever it was,” said Carstairs, “the Frenchman was slandered, and by our own great bard, too.  But come and take something with us, if Lord James, our immediate chief, is willing.”

“He’s willing, and he’ll go with you,” said Lord James Ivor.  “I need a bite myself and in war like this a man can’t afford to neglect food and drink, when the chance is offered.”

“The habits of you Europeans are strong,” said John, whose spirits were still exuberant.  “If you didn’t have to stop now and then to work or to fight you’d eat all the time.  One meal would merge into another, making a beautiful, savory chain linked together.  I know the Englishman’s heaven perfectly well.  It’s made of lakes of ale, beer, porter and Scotch highballs, surrounded by high banks of cheese, mutton and roast beef.”

“There could be worse heavens,” said Carstairs, “and if it should happen that way it wouldn’t be long before you Yankees would be trying to break out of your heaven and into ours.  But here’s a taste of it now, the cheese, for instance, and the beer, although it’s in bottles.”

A spry Tommy Atkins served them, and John, thankful at heart, ate and drank with the best of them.  And while they ate the pulsing waves of air from the battle beat upon their ears.  It seemed to these young men to have been beating that way for weeks.

“Lannes will be back soon,” said John to Carstairs and Wharton, “and he’ll tear you away from your friends here.  You think, Carstairs, that you’re an Englishman, and you’re convinced, Wharton, that you’re an American, but you’re both wrong.  You’re Frenchmen, and you’re going back to the French army, where you belong.  Then Captain Daniel Colton of the Strangers will want to know from you why you haven’t returned sooner.”

“But how are we to go?” said Carstairs.

“And where are we to go?” said Wharton.

“I’d go in a minute,” added Carstairs, “if the German army would let me.”

“So would I,” said Wharton, “but the Germans fight so hard that we can’t get away.”

“Lannes will attend to all those matters,” said John.  “I’ll rest until he comes, if I have the chance.  Is that your artillery firing?”

“It’s our big guns out in front,” said Lord James Ivor.  “Jove, but what work they’ve done!  A lot of our guns have been smashed, one half of our gunners maybe have been smashed with ’em, but they’ve never flinched.  They covered our retreat from Belgium, and they’ve been the heralds of our advance here on the Marne!  Listen to ’em!  How they talk!”

The heavy crash of guns far in front and the thunder of the German guns replying came back to their ears.  It was a louder note in the general and ceaseless murmur of the battle, but the young men paid it only a passing moment of attention.  Carstairs presently added as an afterthought: