On account of our exceptional credentials we were able to see more actual war than many correspondents, who when they learned that permits to go to the front were not forthcoming, went anyway, usually falling into the hands of the military authorities before getting far.  In fact, getting arrested has been the chief occupation of the war correspondents in this war, even our accidental view of the fighting being sufficient to cause our speedy return to Paris under parole.

Going over the battlefield of the Marne, we found the battle had followed much the same tactics as a cyclone, in that in some places nothing, not even the haystacks, had been disturbed, while in others everything, the villages, roads, and fields, had been utterly devastated by shells.  We talked with the inhabitants of every village and always heard the same story—­that during occupation the Germans, evidently having been ordered to be on their good behavior after the Belgian atrocities, had offered little trouble to the civilians, and had confined their activities to looting and wasting the provisions.  Also that when retreating they had destroyed all the food they were unable to carry.

Our baptism of fire appropriately came while we were in a church.  At noon of the second day we motored into a deserted village, and were stopped by a sentry who acknowledged our credentials, but warned us if we intended to proceed to beware of bullets.  But there was not a hostile sound to alarm us.

As we drove carelessly over the brow of a hill where the road dipped down a valley into the town, we were in direct line with the German fire, as great holes in the ground and fallen trees testified.  It is a wonder our big motor car was not an immediate mark.  On the way in we noticed a church steeple shot completely off, so after finding an inn, where the proprietor came from the cellar and offered to guard our car and prepare luncheon, we decided first to examine the church.  The innkeeper explained that we had come during a lull in the bombardment, but the silent, deserted place lulled all sense of danger.  The verger showed us over the church and we were walking through the ruined nave when suddenly we heard a sound like the shrill whistling of the wind.

“It begins again,” our conductor said simply.  As the speech ended we heard a loud boom and the sound of falling masonry as a shell struck the far end of the building.  We hurried to the hotel, the shells screaming overhead.  We saw the buildings tumbling into ruins, glass falling in fine powder and remnants of furniture hanging grotesquely from scraps of masonry.

All my life I had wondered what would be the sensation if I ever were under fire—­would I be afraid?  To my intense relief I suddenly became fatalistic.  I was under fire with a vengeance, but instead of being afraid I kept saying to myself, “Being afraid won’t help matters; besides nothing will happen if we just keep close to the walls and away from the middle street.”