or
plaintive note of Taps to "mend the ravelled sleeve of care." No
regimental band to "soothe the savage breast," nor lead to the charge in
the way it is described in books of history.

No lights to show from dugout or trench, not even on motor cars or
cycles dashing along treacherous roads and trails. If mess and water
carts could be kept in touch with advanced posts, the mail and welfare
supply trucks could be dispensed with.

Days and weeks would pass without so much as sight of a letter,
newspaper, book, or word from the rear of any kind. Such times were like
living in the bottom of a well, glimpses of the sky overhead, but all
around you, dark, foul, and deathly.

Amid such surroundings our chief pleasure and relaxation was often the
sky. Reclining in the soft yielding mud we could watch the canvas of the
heavens, stretched from horizon to horizon, in panoramic splendor.
Whether it was the hour of the "powerful king of day rejoicing in the
east," the mid-day brooding calm, or when "Night folds her starry
curtains round," the ever-changing, ever-beautiful pictures of cloudland
lulled to rest our fancies sweet as music which

"Gentler on the spirit lies
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes."

How thrilled we were when cloudland became of a sudden peopled with
armed men! When that azure blue became an ocean, with ships of the air
scudding in and out of cloudy coves, around billowy headlands, "zuming,"
spiraling, volplaning, maneuvering for position to hurl broadsides of
death.

It was all, as it were, a tournament staged for our amusement. Herald of
its beginning would be a splash of white against the blue above the
German lines. Faintly, then with steadily increased volume in tone,
would come to our ears the unmistakable high tenor engine trum of a
Foker plane.

[Illustration: THE WOUNDED WERE CARRIED TO THE NEAREST SHELTER.]

All eyes would intently watch its approach. It was coming over to deal
death or destruction of some sort, possibly to attack our anchored
observing balloon, just to the rear.

Seconds as well as minutes count in such an adventure, and quicker than
the eye can count them, puffy balls of white appear above, below and all
around on the on-rushing Foker; they are the shrapnel bursts of our
vigilant anti-aircraft guns that have now opened briskly from every hill
and forest.

On it comes!--and now black puffs appear in its path, the dynamite shells
of our guns finding their range