on and this is the
shortest way"--not to mention that it was a much easier way than to hug
the edge of the road in the midst of the traffic.

The battalions and transport which made up this tide of an army's rear
trying to catch up with its extreme front had a view, as the road dipped
into a valley, of the trophies which are the proof of victory. Here were
both guns and prisoners. Among the guns nicely parked you might have
your choice between the latest 77's out of Krupps' and pieces of the
vintage of the '80's. One 77 had not a blemish; another had its muzzle
broken off by the burst of a shell, its spokes slashed by
shell-fragments, and its armored shield, opened by a jagged hole, was as
crumpled as if made of tin.

Four of the old fortress type had a history. They bore the mark of their
French maker. They had fired at the Germans from Maubeuge and after
having been taken by the Germans were set to fire at the French. One
could imagine how the German staff had scattered such pieces along the
line when in stalemate warfare any kind of gun that had a barrel and
could discharge a shell would add to the volume of gunfire.

Such a ponderous piece with its heavy, old-fashioned trail and no recoil
cylinder was never meant to play any part in an army of movement. You
could picture how it had been dragged up into position back of the
German trenches and how a crew of old Landsturm gunners had been
allowed a certain number of shells a day and told off to fire them at
certain villages and crossroads, with that systematic regularity of the
German artillery system which often defeats its own purpose, as we on
the Allies' side well know.

Very likely, as often happened, the crew fired six rounds before
breakfast and eight at four o'clock in the afternoon, and the rest of
the time they might sit about playing cards. Of course, retreat was out
of the question with a gun of this sort. Yet through the twenty months
that the opposing armies had sniped at each other from the same
positions the relic had done faithful auxiliary service. The French
could move it on to some other part of the line now where no offensive
was expected and some old territorials could use it as the old
Landsturmers had used it.

All the guns in this park had been taken by the Colonial Corps, which
thinks itself a little better than the Nancy (or Iron) Corps, a view
with which the Iron Corps entirely disagreed. Scattered among the
Colonial Corps, whether on