Down the cobbled streets which radiated from the square were the remains of the shops and homes of the people of Chauny. Ruins everywhere. The houses had evidently been blown up from within, causing the roofs and floors to fall in a heap into the cellar, so that it was difficult to walk in and look about. The town has, of course, been shelled as well as mined; the Germans were determined to wipe it out completely, so that the iron and sugar industries which made Chauny well known may never be resumed. The strangest kind of things would be lying in the piles of débris--an iron bedstead, twisted and red with rust, an old baby carriage, a boot, a candlestick, all sorts of little domestic things. In many houses the tiled fireplaces were intact, and stood up among all the wreckage. Our lieutenant climbed into one of the houses and brought back a few tiles which he gave us. Mine is a heavenly turquoise blue, smooth and perfect. It is the one relic that I cared to keep. I prefer it to a charred brick or a bent piece of iron. It was there in its place in the war, during the burning and pillaging, and weathered the bombs and the shells. Through the back windows were vistas of grass and trees. I saw an enchanting ravine with a stony brook running through it, and gardens, full of rank grass and weeds. Here and there a holly bush looked about in surprise at being so neglected this year. The church in Chauny is only half destroyed. Most of the roof has been blown up, and the west end of the nave is piled high with wreckage, but the altar is untouched and there is enough roof left to shelter about ten rows of seats. A rough partition of wood and tarred paper has been built across the middle of the church, which divides the piles of broken stone, open to the blazing sunlight, from the altar half hidden and dim. It was very quiet. I heard a bird chirping near by, and saw two sparrows fly through an opening and perch on a cornice over the cross. There is not much left in Chauny even for a bird. The road leading north runs beside an embankment high enough to screen a motor from view. Where this embankment stops, a huge screen has been built of boughs woven in and out of a wire foundation; thus the road is hidden for miles, and military trucks, ammunition trains, themselves "camouflés," pass to and fro unobserved. Near Villquiers-Aumont we began to see the cut-down fruit trees: I don't know whether to say fields of fruit trees, or orchards; for what we saw were rolling green fields, with fruit trees lying prone in even rows, their naked branches-- "Bare, ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang" --ruined carefully and deliberately.