they assume in times of
danger. One immense shell struck an empty house less than a block away
and sent the masonry flying in every direction. The cloud of brick dust
shone like gold in the sun. A moment later, a fleshy peasant woman,
wearing wooden shoes, turned out of an adjoining street and ran awkwardly
toward the scene of the explosion. Her movements were so clumsy and slow,
in proportion to the great exertion she was making, that at any other
time the sight would have been ludicrous. Now it was inevitable that such
a sight should first appeal to Tommy's sense of humor, and thoughtlessly
the boys started laughing and shouting at her.

"Go it, old dear! Yer makin' a grand race!"

"Two to one on Liza!"

"The other w'y, ma! That's the wrong direction! Yer runnin' right into
'em!"

She gave no heed, and a moment later we saw her gather up a little girl
from a doorstep, hugging and comforting her, and shielding her with her
body, instinctively, at the sound of another exploding shell. The
laughter in the ranks stopped as though every man had been suddenly
struck dumb.

They were courageous, those women in the firing-line. Their thoughts were
always for their husbands and sons and brothers who were fighting side by
side with us. Meanwhile, they kept their little shops and _estaminets_
open for the soldiers' trade and made a brave show of living in the old
way. In Armentieres a few old men lent their aid in keeping up the
pretense, but the feeble little trickle of civilian life made scarcely an
impression in the broad current of military activity. A solitary postman,
with a mere handful of letters, made his morning rounds of echoing
streets, and a bent old man with newspapers hobbled slowly along the Rue
Sadi-Carnot shouting, "Le Matin! Le Journal!" to boarded windows and
bolted doors. Meanwhile, we marched back and forth between billets in the
town and trenches just outside. And the last thing which we saw upon
leaving the town, and the first upon returning, was the lengthening row
of new-made graves close to a sunny wall in the garden of the ruined
convent. It was a pathetic little burial plot, filled with the bodies of
women and children who had been killed in German bombardments of the
town.

And thus for more than three months, while we were waiting for Fritzie to
"come out," we adapted ourselves to the changing conditions of trench
life and trench warfare, with a readiness which surprised and gratified
us. O