Desnoyers. "We are going to
see your son."

At nightfall, they ran across groups of infantry, soldiers with long
beards and blue uniforms discolored by the inclemency of the weather.
They were returning from the intrenchments, carrying over the hump of
their knapsacks, spades, picks and other implements for removing the
ground, that had acquired the importance of arms of combat. They were
covered with mud from head to foot. All looked old in full youth. Their
joy at returning to the cantonment after a week in the trenches, made
them fill the silence of the plain with songs in time to the tramp
of their nailed boots. Through the violet twilight drifted the winged
strophes of the Marseillaise, or the heroic affirmations of the Chant du
Depart.

"They are the soldiers of the Revolution," exclaimed Lacour with
enthusiasm. "France has returned to 1792."

The two captains established their charges for the night in a
half-ruined town where one of their divisions had its headquarters, and
then took their leave. Others would act as their escort the following
morning.

The two friends were lodging in the Hotel de la Siren, an old inn with
its front gnawed by shell-fire. The proprietor showed them with pride
a window broken in the form of a crater. This window had made the
old tavern sign--a woman of iron with the tail of a fish--sink into
insignificance. As Desnoyers was occupying the room next to the one that
had received the mark of the shell, the inn-keeper was anxious to point
it out to them before they went to bed.

Everything was broken--walls, floor, roof. The furniture, a pile of
splinters in the corner; the flowered wall paper, a fringe of tatters
hanging from the walls. Through an enormous hole they could see the
stars and feel the chill of the night. The owner stated that this
destruction was not the work of the Germans, but was caused by a
projectile from one of the seventy-fives when repelling the invaders
from the village. And he beamed on the ruin with patriotic pride,
repeating:

"There's a sample of French marksmanship for you! How do you like the
workings of the seventy-fives? . . . What do you think of that
now? . . ."

In spite of the fatigue of the journey, Don Marcelo slept badly, excited
by the thought that his son was not far away.

An hour before daybreak, they left the village, in an automobile, guided
by another official. On both sides of the road, they saw camps and
camps. They left behind