Peter Beaudett, more educated in French ways than the rest of us, returned, as Pat Quinn afterwards declared, “blarney for blarney,” and kissed one of the younger women effusively. I thought it a shame that we had not been educated up to the point of receiving such grateful demonstrations as they were meant. But, New England people check, rather than give way to, their emotions. Do they gain, or lose by it? Though Peter Beaudett could not speak Parisian French he could partially understand and be understood. “What are they saying?” I asked the French interpreter. “They say, ‘May God and his holy angels have you all in his keeping!’” he replied. Thus it was that we awkwardly received the blessings of the good, suffering women of France; and I trust in part appreciated them. “Not all the Germans were bad,” said one old woman; “one young officer helped us, and gave us part of his small piece of bread, and assisted us in getting together things to make us more comfortable.” This description somehow reminded me of Jot, and his helpful ways. The clouds had cleared away and, under a star-lit sky, we lay down to the sleep of tired men, with the camp sentinels walking their posts protectingly around us. CHAPTER XX AN ADVENTURE OF ARMS The next morning, when we resumed our march on the heels of the retreating enemy, I was unaccountably depressed. I felt that I was standing on the verge of calamity. I will acknowledge that I am superstitious. Ever since I can remember I have had warnings when unusual trouble was impending. I did not, however, allow this feeling of coming misfortune to impair my work as an officer; for I had no time to consider such minor things as personal feelings, when the interests of my country were looming large ahead of me in battles about to be fought. The tendencies of a soldier’s life are to make him a fatalist. He gets to feeling and thinking that what is to be will happen, and that he has only to do his duty faithfully as his part in it. And he is confirmed in that belief by the everyday happenings of his adventurous life; so why borrow trouble about that which you can’t help? This, though not often put in words by them, is a very common feeling--or I may call it belief--among soldiers who are constantly offering their lives to the hazards of battle. When I speak of the retreating enemy, I do not mean that we had an easy time of it always, or that they were running away. They had been forced into such a position by the strategy of Foch, and the hard fighting of the Allies, that it was essential to their safety to retreat. But to do this they must fight at certain points for the protection of their divisions and the vast munitions of war which they were removing to another line.