“I suppose it’s forward again,” said Carstairs between drinks of coffee.

“I fancy you’re right,” said Wharton.  “Since we’ve been put in the brigade of that giant of a general, Vaugirard, we’re always going forward.  He seems to have an uncommon love of fighting for a fat man.”

“It’s an illusion,” said John, “that a fat man is more peaceful than a thin one.”

“How are you going to prove it?” asked Wharton.

“Look at Napoleon.  When he was thin he was a great fighter, and when he became stout he was just as great a fighter as ever.  Fat didn’t take away his belligerency.”

“I hear that the whole German army has been driven across the Marne,” said Carstairs, “and that the force we hoped to cut off has either escaped or is about to escape.  If that’s so they won’t retreat much further.  The pride of the Germans is too great, and their army is too powerful for them to yield much more ground to us.”

“I think you’re right, or about as near right as an Englishman can be, Carstairs,” said John.  “What must be the feelings of the Emperor and the kings and the princes and the grand dukes and the dukes and the martial professors to know that the German army has been turned back from Paris, just when the City of Light seemed ready to fall into their hands?”

“Pretty bitter, I think,” said Carstairs, “but it’s not pleasant to have the capital of a country fall into the hands of hostile armies.  I don’t read of such things with delight.  It wouldn’t give me any such overwhelming joy for us to march into Berlin.  To beat the Germans is enough.”

Another trumpet blew and the Strangers rose for battle again with an invisible enemy.  All the officers, like the men, were on foot, their horses having been killed in the earlier fighting, and they advanced slowly across the stubble of a wheat field.  The morning was still cool, although the sun was bright, and the air was full of vigor.  The rumbling of the artillery grew with the day, but the Strangers said little.  Battle had ceased to be a novelty.  They would fight somewhere and with somebody, but they would wait patiently and without curiosity until the time came.

“I suppose Lannes didn’t come back,” said Carstairs.  “I haven’t heard anyone speak of seeing him this morning.”

“He may have returned before we awoke,” said John.  “The Arrow flies very fast.  Like as not he delivered his message, whatever it was, and was off again with another in a few minutes.  He may be sixty or eighty miles from here now.”

“Odd fellow that Lannes,” said Carstairs.  “Do you know anything about his people, Scott?”

“Not much except that he has a mother and sister.  I spent a night with them at their house in Paris.  I’ve heard that French family ties are strong, but they seemed to look upon him as the weak would regard a great champion, a knight, in their own phrase, without fear and without reproach.”