Drifting aimlessly here and there, ready to move at a rumour, the great army of the homeless, just as in Belgium, moves through the fertile fields. It is depressed, purposeless, puzzled. Turned back from the big towns, reluctant to cross the Channel, uprooted from the home-fields, like plants torn up and swirled endlessly in a weir pool--moving endlessly back and forwards. The generations of peace, the rich product of human progress, that war is killing. Through their unheeding lines on either side passed ceaselessly the wagon-loads of hay, the munition carts, the cavalry patrols, all the sacrifices to the new idol of devastation. We are long past cheering soldiers in the war-lands. CHAPTER IX The Movements in the North Sunday night. THE Germans are turning sharply south, descending diagonally on the east of Paris. The country they held, or partially held, three days ago, as far west as Compiègne, Gisors, and Pontoise, is now free of all but isolated patrols. The brilliant cavalry action at Compiègne, where the British lost six and recovered sixteen guns, may have been but a feint to cover the alteration of direction. Amiens they still hold, and the line due south of it. Our forces, keeping touch with the enemy, have moved forward their covering line across and to the east of Paris on the side of the Marne, with a curve south near Paris on their left wing. What is the reason of the change? Is it merely a move in the great chess game designed at Berlin; first the powerful "marching column" striking directly at the more vulnerable north-west corner of Paris, so as to draw out the French defence in that direction, thinning its connecting links with the eastern army; then a swift change, and a blow at the weakened centre, with the intention of cutting off and surrounding the eastern army very near to fatal Sedan? Is it an attempt to force a decisive action before attacking Paris, since the Allies, in spite of their costly retreat, are still an undefeated army, now safely established in a strong defensive position? Is it this attempt, combined with the intention of joining forces with the Rheims armies of von Buelow and Wurtemberg, and of cutting communications behind the army opposing the Crown Prince?