Up the British line there crept news of big doings down south. There was a new sound in the air--a distant continued thunder that was different from any previous sound--the big drums of the devil's orchestra were booming an accompaniment that was the motif of hell's cantata. Up the line ran the rumor of a battle intenser than any yet fought--more guns being massed in a few miles than the world had ever seen before. Into every heart crept the dread of what might await us down there, and to every mind came the question: "When are we going?" Close behind rumor came marching orders, and as we left our old trenches south of Armentieres we said good-bye to scenes that had become homelike, and turned our faces south to make that "rendezvous with death" in the dread unknown to which duty called us. But there were weeks of peaceful scenes that seemed to us like a forgotten melody of love and home and peace, and the train that bore us out of the war zone seemed to carry us into another world, but though the feast to our eyes was pleasant and like "far-off forgotten things and pleasures long ago," we were not borne thither on downy couches. Never were there seats more uncomfortable than the floors of those French trucks, and we occupied them for days. When now and again the train stopped and we could unbend ourselves for a short stroll, it was like the interval in a dull play. We had taken our cookers with us on the train, but the French railway authorities would not allow us to have a fire burning while the train was moving, so we would have to draw onto a siding that our meals might be cooked. Now and again at these stops there would be canteens run by English and American women, and the home-cooking and delicacies they smilingly gave us were a reminder of the barracking of the womenfolk that makes courage and endurance of men possible. These are the untiring heroines that uphold our hands till victory shall come, and so the women fight on. There were French women, too, who brought us fruit and gingerbread, and with eyes and strange tongue unburdened hearts full of gratitude and prayer. How glad we were to gaze on the earth, smiling through fields of waving corn and laughing with peaceful homes, with the church-spires still pointing heavenward, after so many months of associating with the scars of blackened fields and the running sores festering on earth's bosom, once so fair, where churches had swooned and in lost hope laid their finger in the dust.