at if I
never saw Father again! I hope you don't think I'm too selfish!"

Poor darling, _selfish_ to travel in her own car with her own husband! I
just gave her a look to show what I felt; but after that I could no
longer object to parting with Brian. Puck had got his way, and I could
see by the light in his annoyingly beautiful eyes how exquisitely he
enjoyed the situation. Brian and Brian's kitbag were transferred to the
Red Cross taxi, there and then, to save delay for us and the officer who
would meet us, in case the wretched car should get a _panne_, en route
to Bar-le-Duc. As a matter of fact, that is what happened; or at all
events when our big, reliable motor purred with us into Bar-le-Duc, the
O'Farrells were nowhere to be seen.

Our officer--another lieutenant--had arrived in a little Ford; and as we
were invited to lunch in the citadel of Verdun we could not wait. I felt
sure the demon Puck had managed to be late on purpose, so that my
Verdun day might be spoiled by anxiety for Brian. Thus he would kill two
birds with one stone: show how little I gained by the enemy's absence,
and punish me for not letting him make love!

The road to Verdun was a wonderful prelude. After three years' Titanic
battling, how could there be a road at all? I had had vague visions of
an earthly turmoil, a wilderness of shell-holes where once had gleamed
rich meadows and vineyards, with little villages set jewel-like among
them, and the visions were true. But through the war-worn desert always
the road unrolled--the brave white road. Heaven alone could tell the
deeds of valour which had achieved the impossible, making and remaking
that road! It should have some great poem all to itself, I thought; a
poem called "The Road to Verdun." And the poem should be set to music. I
could almost hear the lilt of the verses as our car slipped through the
tangle of motor _camions_ and gun-carriages on the way thither. As for
the music, I could really hear that without flight of fancy: a deep,
rolling undertone of heavy wheels, of jolting guns, of pulsing engines,
like a million beating hearts; and out of its muffled bass rising the
lighter music of men's voices: soldiers singing; soldiers going to the
front, who shouted gaily to soldiers going to repose; soldiers laughing;
soldier-music that no hardship or suffering could subdue.

We had seen such processions before, but none so endless as this, going
both ways, as far as the eye could reach.