This grey wall, unshaken, mighty, was the end of the long preparation, as it was the end of the sea.  It was the reason for everything that had happened in his life for the last fifteen months.  It was the reason why Tannhauser and the gentle Virginian, and so many others who had set out with him, were never to have any life at all, or even a soldier’s death.  They were merely waste in a great enterprise, thrown overboard like rotten ropes.  For them this kind release,—­trees and a still shore and quiet water,—­was never, never to be.  How long would their bodies toss, he wondered, in that inhuman kingdom of darkness and unrest?

He was startled by a weak voice from behind.

“Claude, are we over?”

“Yes, Fanning.  We’re over.”

Book Five:  “Bidding the Eagles of the West Fly On”

I

At noon that day Claude found himself in a street of little shops, hot and perspiring, utterly confused and turned about.  Truck drivers and boys on bell less bicycles shouted at him indignantly, furiously.  He got under the shade of a young plane tree and stood close to the trunk, as if it might protect him.  His greatest care, at any rate, was off his hands.  With the help of Victor Morse he had hired a taxi for forty francs, taken Fanning to the base hospital, and seen him into the arms of a big orderly from Texas.  He came away from the hospital with no idea where he was going—­except that he wanted to get to the heart of the city.  It seemed, however, to have no heart; only long, stony arteries, full of heat and noise.  He was still standing there, under his plane tree, when a group of uncertain, lost-looking brown figures, headed by Sergeant Hicks, came weaving up the street; nine men in nine different attitudes of dejection, each with a long loaf of bread under his arm.  They hailed Claude with joy, straightened up, and looked as if now they had found their way!  He saw that he must be a plane tree for somebody else.

Sergeant Hicks explained that they had been trudging about the town, looking for cheese.  After sixteen days of heavy, tasteless food, cheese was what they all wanted.  There was a grocery store up the street, where there seemed to be everything else.  He had tried to make the old woman understand by signs.

“Don’t these French people eat cheese, anyhow?  What’s their word for it, Lieutenant?  I’m damned if I know, and I’ve lost my phrase book.  Suppose you could make her understand?”

“Well, I’ll try.  Come along, boys.”

Crowding close together, the ten men entered the shop.  The proprietress ran forward with an exclamation of despair.  Evidently she had thought she was done with them, and was not pleased to see them coming back.  When she paused to take breath, Claude took off his hat respectfully, and performed the bravest act of his life; uttered the first phrase-book sentence he had ever spoken to a French person.  His men were at his back; he had to say something or run, there was no other course.  Looking the old woman in the eye, he steadily articulated: