Farther north, and on the other bank of the Meuse, lies another large village which has been turned into a colony of eclopes.  Fifteen hundred sick or exhausted men are housed there—­and there are no hot douches or chintz curtains to cheer them!  We were taken first to the church, a large featureless building at the head of the street.  In the doorway our passage was obstructed by a mountain of damp straw which a gang of hostler-soldiers were pitch-forking out of the aisles.  The interior of the church was dim and suffocating.  Between the pillars hung screens of plaited straw, forming little enclosures in each of which about a dozen sick men lay on more straw, without mattresses or blankets.  No beds, no tables, no chairs, no washing appliances—­in their muddy clothes, as they come from the front, they are bedded down on the stone floor like cattle till they are well enough to go back to their job.  It was a pitiful contrast to the little church at Blercourt, with the altar lights twinkling above the clean beds; and one wondered if even so near the front, it had to be.  “The African village, we call it,” one of our companions said with a laugh:  but the African village has blue sky over it, and a clear stream runs between its mud huts.

We had been told at Sainte Menehould that, for military reasons, we must follow a more southerly direction on our return to Chalons; and when we left Verdun we took the road to Bar-le-Duc.  It runs southwest over beautiful broken country, untouched by war except for the fact that its villages, like all the others in this region, are either deserted or occupied by troops.  As we left Verdun behind us the sound of the cannon grew fainter and died out, and we had the feeling that we were gradually passing beyond the flaming boundaries into a more normal world; but suddenly, at a cross-road, a sign-post snatched us back to war:  St. Mihiel, 18 Kilometres.  St. Mihiel, the danger-spot of the region, the weak joint in the armour!  There it lay, up that harmless-looking bye-road, not much more than ten miles away—­a ten minutes’ dash would have brought us into the thick of the grey coats and spiked helmets!  The shadow of that sign-post followed us for miles, darkening the landscape like the shadow from a racing storm-cloud.

Bar-le-Duc seemed unaware of the cloud.  The charming old town was in its normal state of provincial apathy:  few soldiers were about, and here at last civilian life again predominated.  After a few days on the edge of the war, in that intermediate region under its solemn spell, there is something strangely lowering to the mood in the first sight of a busy unconscious community.  One looks instinctively, in the eyes of the passers by, for a reflection of that other vision, and feels diminished by contact with people going so indifferently about their business.