In the track of the war machine there was no sign as we passed of any attempt to repair the ravages of four campaigns—it will take no trifling outlay in money, labor and ingenuity, for instance, to turn the battlefield of the Somme into a habitable countryside; it is now "mere land desperate and done with," like "the ominous tract" through which Childe Roland rode to his fate. But on the borders of the actual battlefields work was going forward to prepare the ground for the coming crop. Between Lens and Douai the Germans had scarred the country with a series of defensive positions; and gangs of German military prisoners were busily engaged, under the watchful eye of overseers, in refilling the deep trenches and smoothing the fields. That was a sight often repeated as we passed from the battle wilderness to the less damaged belt about it; and there was about it a touch of satisfying ironic fitness! For these trenches were built by forced French labor of old men, women and children under German taskmasters. For the first ten or fifteen miles out of Amiens along the road to Roye—the scene of a sharp battle in the open which did relatively little damage to the country—many gangs of German prisoners were at work with their spades; while the French farmers were busily turning furrows in the fields upon which armies met in furious conflict last August. Here and there a small tractor could be seen at work. Almost invariably as the motor went by the German prisoners stopped their work and with wistful eyes watched it pass down the road to the outside world of freedom. It was not difficult to read the thoughts in the minds of these men, most of them young and many of them not unintelligent in looks. This was the end of their dream of world domination, their reward for their surrender of life and thought to the homicidal maniac who reigned at Potsdam and now hides in fear and trembling from the wrath of the world in an obscure retreat in Holland. *CHAPTER IV* *THE MARKS OF WAR* A British general who fought through the whole war recently observed in the British House of Commons, of which he is now a member, that "war is a most disgusting, barbarous and preposterous state of affairs." One feels how true this is as he passes through the war area with its all-too-clear record of death, loss, famine and incalculable human suffering when he is not under the control of boundless admiration for the valor, sacrifice, tenacity, endurance and ingenuity evoked by this war in men who five years ago seemed ordinary men and will tomorrow be again plain citizens. One swings between the two emotions as he travels in the wake of War and takes note of the sign-manuals which it has left everywhere along the way.