n eyes. To these gentlemen and
their colleagues who perform this task that can hardly be agreeable,
who risk their lives and give over their time with unfailing courtesy
and consideration that the American newspaper correspondent may see,
may report, it is impossible to return sufficient thanks, and every
American newspaper reader who finds on his breakfast table the
journal that tells him of the progress of the war owes something to
some officer.

"Were we to see Verdun?" This was the first problem. I had been warned
two days before that the bombardment was raging and that it was quite
possible that it would be unsafe to go farther. But the news was
reassuring; Verdun was tranquil. "And Petain?" One could not yet say.

Even as we spoke there was a stirring in the crowd, general saluting,
and I caught a glimpse of the commander-in-chief as he went quickly up
the staircase. For the rest we must wait. But not for very long; in a
few minutes there came the welcome word that General Petain would see
us, would see the stray American correspondent.

Since I saw Petain in the little Mairie at Souilly I have seen many
photographs of him, but none in any real measure give the true picture
of the defender of Verdun. He saw us in his office, the bare upstairs
room, two years ago the office of the Mayor of Souilly. Think of the
Selectmen's office in any New England village and the picture will be
accurate: a bare room, a desk, one chair, a telephone, nothing on the
walls but two maps, one of the military zone, one of the actual front
and positions of the Verdun fighting. A bleak room, barely heated by
the most primitive of stoves. From the single window one looked down
on the cheerless street along which lumbered the caravan of autos. On
the pegs against the wall hung the General's hat and coat,
weather-stained, faded, the clothes of a man who worked in all
weathers. Of staff officers, of uniforms, of color there was just
nothing; of war there was hardly a hint.

At the door the commander-in-chief met us, shook hands, and murmured
clearly and slowly, with incisive distinctness, the formal words of
French greeting; he spoke no English. Instantly there was the
suggestion of Kitchener, not of Kitchener as you see him in flesh, but
in photographs, the same coldness, decision. The smile that
accompanied the words of welcome vanished and the face was utterly
motionless, expressionless. You saw a tall, broad-shouldered man, with
ever