The commandant did something to his watch as we sat down, and then gallantly yet unblushingly remarked that it was just 12.30, but that even _had_ we been late it would have only meant a longer anticipation of something pleasant. My companions both gave smiles of satisfaction for that, on the Hartmann, where men are almost entirely concerned with killing or being killed, the commandant was living up to the French reputation in more ways than one. I thought, too, that it was a very happy beginning, looking well, so to speak, among the _hors d’œuvre_. Captain Perdrizet had told me the day before that if the commandant had to requisition every man and mule in the sector there would be an excellent lunch. Now the very good food was accompanied by a delicious, warm Burgundy from the commandant’s own part of the world, and at dessert a bottle of Pommery & Greno, very cold, a souvenir of his service in Champagne, was poured. All drank sparingly of both, after the manner of Latins. Some asked delicately, even humbly, as one really wanting information, concerning the rumor that the United States were “going dry,” and wondered why it was to be. I rather wondered myself, up there on the Hartmann, forgetful for a moment of the unpleasant things I know about distilled liquors in the Home of the Free and the Land of the Brave. Said the commandant, puzzled, looking at his not large glass of ruby liquid, “_Un peu de vin en mangeant, tout de même?_ ...” (“But a little wine at one’s meals?...”) Said another officer, with a quickly restrained gesture of distaste: “_Est-ce vrai qu’il faut boire seul et debout et entre les repas en Amérique?_” (“Is it true that one must drink alone and standing up and between meals in America?”) I was saved an answer to this question, which was a fairly near picture of some of the national customs, by the shaking, deafening sound of an exploding shell. Those paper windows didn’t seem to mind it, though everything on the table rattled. The commandant looked at the captain, who disappeared, returning almost immediately to say that an artilleryman with his horses had been killed—and the doctor, who had started to the door, sat down again. A few minutes later, as we were beginning the _tournedos grillés, maître d’hôtel_, the telephone rang, and a radio was brought in hot and given to me for a souvenir. It was one sent by the German parlementaries saying that as they were unable to get back to Germany by road on account of broken bridges, they would be obliged to proceed by air, and that their ’plane would be marked by two white flames—_zwei weisse Flammen_. “It sounds safe, but all the same I don’t envy the officer detailed to accompany them,” said somebody; and they all smiled and seemed glad they weren’t in the airplane. I’ve noticed in the past two or three days that military men are beginning to prize life again.