The day was beautiful. It seemed strange, unnatural that the country should be so beautiful as well. Even the gun-pits among which Kendall quickly found himself did not detract from the beauty, for they were almost invisible even at a distance of a few yards, only appearing as low mounds, scarcely differing in color from the surrounding fields. Yet the guns were there under their tents of chicken-wire covered with stained burlap and grasses. Everywhere he looked were these mounds which during the night that had just passed had been uncovered to the sky while shells filled with deadly gas had screamed through intervening miles of air to fall with deadly effect in the German lines.... It had been mustard gas, six thousand rounds of it, he had been told. He was also told it was the first time American gunners had been supplied with that devilishness of war—to celebrate the Fourth.... Now the gun-pits were neat as a New England parlor, guns were brightly polished. Nothing seemed to have happened there. He stood above and looked down the slope of the valley, a valley of golden fields, a valley which was a miracle of color. Never had Kendall seen such color, acres upon acres of it, nor such a profusion of flowers. Gold and red and white and blue ... and _peace_! That valley had been spread there for some painter—not for a battle-field. It impressed the inherited mysticism in him—he saw a symbolism in it all. The fields blazed with gorgeous tints; rectangles acres in extent were red with poppies, not with a sprinkling of poppies here and there, but as with a snowfall of vivid red. Segregated in an adjoining field were cornflowers, a carpet of blue; and then another field glaring white with some flower that Kendall did not know.... Other fields there were in which the three flowers mingled. The panorama spoke of peace and beauty.... It was as if the war irritated God until He spread this, His own camouflage of peace, to hide the horrors from His down-gazing eyes.... Or perhaps, as of olden times He had set His rainbow in the sky as a promise to the sons of Noah, so now He planted this living rainbow in the fields as a new and more wonderful promise to all the sons of men ... a promise that His purposes should nevermore demand another war to devastate the earth.... Before him, knee-deep in poppies, moved half a dozen figures in khaki. “The boys are gathering flowers for the funeral,” he was told. “The funeral?...” “Of the men killed last night....”