he French flag fluttered, the band started to
play the "Marseillaise," and a ship-load of happy people sang it.

A sense of peace settled down over us all. The rainbow, covenant of
old, promise of the eternal God to his people, seemed to have new
significance that memorable day.

Another Silhouette of the Sea! Troops are expected in at a certain
port of entry. The camp has been emptied of ten thousand men. That
means but one thing, that new troops are expected. The great
dirigibles sailed out a few hours ago. The sea-planes followed.
Thousands of American men and women lined the docks waiting, peering
with anxious eyes out toward the "point." Here at this point a great
cape jutted out into the ocean, and around this cape we were accustomed
to catch sight of the convoys first.

A sense of great expectancy was upon us. We had heard rumors of
submarines off the shore for several days. Then suddenly we heard a
terrific cannonading, and we knew that the transports and the convoys
were in a battle with the U-boats that had lain in wait for them. An
anxious hour passed. The sun was setting and the west was a great rose
blanket.

Then a shout went up far down the line of waiting Americans as the
first great transport swung around the cape. Then another, and a third
and a fourth, and finally a fifth; great gray bulks, two of them
camouflaged until you could not tell whether they were little
destroyers or a group of destroyers on one big ship. Then they got
near enough to see the American boys, thousands of them, lining the
railings. Through the glasses we could make out the names of the
transports. They were some of the largest that sail the Atlantic.
When as they came slowly in on the full tide, with that rose sunset
back of them, the bands on their decks playing across the waters, and
five thousand boys on the first boat singing "Keep the Home Fires
Burning," then the "Marseillaise," and finally "The Star-Spangled
Banner," in which the crowd on the shore joined, there was a Silhouette
of the Sea that burned its way into our souls.

There were the great ships, and beyond them the cape, and beyond that
the hovering dirigibles, and beyond them the great bird seaplanes, and
beyond them the background of a rose-colored sky, and beyond that the
memories of home.

III

SILHOUETTES OF SACRIFICE

Every day for two months, February and March, sometimes when the roads
were hub-deep with mud, and sometimes