We passed no more patrols, but when our lights finally picked out the first signs of the next village they also brought into bold relief a pile of masonry completely blocking the road. We stopped. A villager loomed out of the dark at the side of the car and informed us that the road was barred because the bridge just beyond had been blown up and that we could not pass over the pontoon until morning. The inn, he said, had never been closed nor was its stock of tobacco yet exhausted. He offered to conduct us, and when the innkeeper--a very fat innkeeper--looked over our credentials from General Galliéni he insisted that certain guests should double up, in order to make room for us in the crowded place. He then called his wife, his daughter, his father and his father's wife, that they might be permitted the honor of shaking us by the hand, as he held aloft the candle, the flame of which flickered down the ancient stone corridor that led to our rooms. (B) The Wounded Who Could Walk We were crossing a battlefield four days old. It was remarkable how much it resembled the ordinary kind of field. The French had conquered quickly at this point and the dead had been buried. Except for frequent mounds of earth headed by sticks forming crosses; except for the marks of shrapnel in the roads and on the trees; except for the absence of every living thing, this countryside was at peace. The sun was shining. The frost had brought out flaming tints on the hills. It was glorious Indian summer. The road we were motoring wound far away through the battlefield. For the armies had fought over a front of many miles. We traveled slowly. As we topped a rise and searched the valley below with our glasses, a mile away in the cup of the valley we saw a moving mass. It filled the roadway from hedge to hedge and appeared to be approaching us. We drove more slowly, stopping several times. The movement of the car made the glasses quiver and blur. We saw that the moving mass stretched back a considerable distance--perhaps the length of a city block. We stopped our engine and waited in the center of the road. As the mass came nearer it outlined itself into men. We saw that they were soldiers; but we could not distinguish the uniform. So we waited. We even got our papers ready to show if necessary. Then we saw that the soldiers were not of the same regiment--that their uniforms were conglomerate. We saw the misfits of the French line regiments, the gay trappings of the Spahis and Chasseurs d'Afrique, the skirt trousers of the Zouaves, Turcos and Senegalese, the khaki of the English Tommies and the turbans of the Hindoos. But all these men in the varied costumes of the army of the Allies wore one common mark--a bandage. Arm or head or face was wrapped in white cloths, usually stained with blood. For these on whom we waited were the wounded who could walk. They were going from the battle trenches to somewhere in the rear.