"What would you?" they cried. "We are each old enough to be your mother. Besides--ah, the good God knows what is in our hearts; have we not sons fifty miles away, fighting for France? We shall win, monsieur! Do you not think so? With such gallant men as you to help us we cannot fail. The Germans are pigs, devils; but we have driven them back, back! Soon they will be out of France." In the streets it was sometimes difficult for them to get along. On every hand people came up and insisted on shaking hands. But few of them could speak English, and they imagined that Bob was just as ignorant of French. Again and again they received slaps on the back, while cries of "Good old Sport!" reached them. Indeed, this was the popular form of salutation. It was nearly all the English many of them knew, and appearing to believe that this was the British form of salutation, they indulged in it freely. At length their duties in Paris were at an end, and then Bob, with a strange feeling at heart, mounted a train which was to take him to within a short distance of the line of battle. They had not long left the French capital, before Bob realised that he was passing through country which not long before had been the scene of carnage. The train passed slowly along, and was often held up owing to the terrible exigencies of war. "Do you see that, Nancarrow?" said Pringle, pointing to a field in which wheat had been planted, but which had never been garnered. Indeed it would be impossible to garner it. It had been trampled under foot by tens of thousands of hurrying feet. Here and there they saw trenches that had been hastily dug, and then discarded when they were no longer of use. Repeatedly they saw the ruins of villages, some of which had been wantonly, barbarously destroyed by the invading foe. It was a warm day, windless and clear, and as the train stopped at roadside stations or drew up at sidings, they could not help being impressed by the peace which seemed to reign. The birds still sang on the tree branches, cattle still lowed in the fields, and peasants still worked on their little farms. "If one closed one's eyes, it would seem as though war were impossible," said Bob. "Yes, but you'd be quickly undeceived when you opened them," replied Pringle. "Look at those trees!" and he pointed to a small wood, where charred trunks of trees, splintered branches, and blackened leaves told their story. "I expect some of our men were there, or the Germans thought they were," said Pringle, "and so they----" and he shrugged his shoulders significantly. "Perhaps some poor beggars may be lying wounded around there even yet," suggested Bob. "I don't think so. As far as I can learn, the whole line has been carefully searched, and every man that could be saved has been. But, by God, the thought of it is awful!" "Yes, no one knows what may have happened in a firing-line hundreds of miles long. It must have been hell."