t shot. I eliminated
myself for the moment.

Now with dramatic suddenness death touches Vitry with her chill fingers.
In the distance, right away beyond the bridge behind a bend in the road,
there is a clatter of hoofs. It stops. Again it goes on and stops for
about a couple of minutes, and then quite distinctly can be heard the
sound of a body of horsemen proceeding at a walk.

The cavalry scouts have vanished into big barns on either side of the
road, and around the corner of the bridge comes a small body of German
cavalry. They have passed the spot where the French scouts are hidden
and I have retreated to my bedroom window, from where I can count twelve
of the Death's Head riders.

They are riding to their fate. Right slap up in front of the cars they
come. A rifle shot rings out from where the French scouts are hidden,
then another, and that is the signal for the inferno to be loosed.

C-r-r-r-r-r-ack, and the mitrailleuse spits out a regular hail of death,
vicious, whiplike, never-ceasing cracks. Two horses are down and three
men lie prone in the road.

The Germans have not fired a shot, all their energies being concentrated
in wildly turning their horses to get back again round the bend.

It is too late. Another two are toppled over by the scouts in the barns,
and then cars are after them, still spitting out an unending hail of
lead.

It seems impossible that even a fly could live in such a stream of
bullets, yet out of the dozen three get round the bend, and, galloping
madly, make for the only spot where they can leave the road and get
across country. Even the automobile and auto-mitrailleuse men cannot
follow them there.

These fellows seem perfectly satisfied with a bag of nine, obtained
without a scratch. All are dead, one of them with over twenty wounds in
him. Two horses are stone dead, and three others have to be put out of
their misery. The other four are contentedly standing at the roadside
munching grass, one with a hind leg lifted a few inches off the ground.

The bodies of the dead Germans are laid side by side in a field to await
burial. The uniforms are stripped of everything that can be removed,
buttons and shoulder straps. The men in the cars take the water bottles,
swords, and revolvers as mementos.

I imperfectly understood the real meaning of this scrap. I had thought
it was an encounter between stray forces. A talk with the driver of an
armed car, however, enlarged my perspective.