The front rank glanced wonderingly at the big motor that blocked the center of the road and moved aside in either direction. Those behind did likewise, until there was a lane for the car to pass. But we waited. As the front rank came level with us, a dust-caked British Tommy, with a bloody bandage over one eye, winked his good one at us and touched his cap in salute. We took our hats off as the tragic crowd surrounded us. Tommy sat down on our running board and I handed him a cigarette. The cigarette established cordial relations at once. Tommy's lean face was browned by the sun and streaked with dirt. About the bandage which encircled his head and crossed his right eye were cakes of dirt and clots of blood. His hair where his cap was pushed back was sand color and crinkly. The eye that turned up to me was pale blue and the skin just about it was white and blue veined. "Is this Frawnce or is it Belgium?" he asked me. At my answer he squirmed around on the running board, calling to a companion in khaki just coming up--his arm in a sling--"'Ee says it's Frawnce." The other nodded indifferently and saluted us. I asked the man about the battle, but he only stared. His friend on the running board turned his eye upward and said, "It's 'ell, that's wot it is." I replied that my question had to do with the course of the battle--which side was winning; and he too only stared at that. Then he arose and plodded on and I gave a cigarette to his companion. A score of men stood about the front of the car where the chauffeur was busy handing out apples and pears. My companions were busy on the opposite side with a dozen French infantrymen, telling the latest news from Paris and giving out newspapers. I leaned over them, the box of cigarettes still in my hand. A tall Senegalese standing back from the group caught sight of the box and called out, "Cigarette, eh!" I motioned him to my side of the car. He came running weakly, followed at once by fifty others. I handed out until that box and several others that I dug from my valise were exhausted. I called several times that I had no more, but still they crowded about, stretching out their arms and crying, "Cigarette, eh?" One of my companions warned me that we might ourselves feel the want of tobacco--that money would not buy it in the country we were traversing, because it did not exist.