I am here at Bar-le-Duc for a few days because it seems that after all it isn’t quite certain whether I had better go to Verdun or to Souilly. While my fate is being decided, I am acting as a sort of errand-girl, special messenger and Jack-of-all-jobs here at Headquarters. This morning I went out in a flivver to do an errand. The driver told me how, a few days ago, he had carried a young French girl all over the country-side looking for her aviator-lover’s grave. Finally with the help of a French officer they had found it. The girl had placed a wreath on the grave, said a little prayer and turned away. He showed me the place, three grey wooden crosses, one with a china wreath on it, marking the field where a large aviation camp had once been and now quite the loneliest and most deserted spot in the world. Coming back, I was sent to the Provost Marshal’s office to telephone. While I waited for my connection two M. P.s brought in a prisoner. He belonged to the —— Division which reached France in September. Two days after he landed he went A. W. O. L. and had been missing ever since. By some unknown means he had managed to acquire a typewriter and all winter, it appeared, he had been living in the woods supporting himself by typing faked travel orders and selling them to the soldiers. He was a heavy-set fellow, sullen and taciturn under their questioning. They went through his pockets and turned out the collection on the table; chewing gum, tobacco, a shaving-set, old newspapers, screws and nails, buttons and string and matches and pins, pencils, and post cards, a knife and three toothbrushes. Bar-le-Duc I understand does a thriving business in A. W. O. L.s. One of the M. P.s told me of a lad who, when asked for his papers, took to his heels and was promptly pursued. “I chased him all over town, and finally I ran him into the canal,” he narrated joyfully. “He stood out there with the water up to his waist while I stood on the bank and shied stones at him. And he had on a serge uniform too.” “How did it end?” I asked. “Oh I let him go; I figured if he wanted to get away that bad he had a right to.” Up this same canal a few weeks ago came a flotilla of French submarines bound for the Rhine, the sailors startling the inhabitants by their sudden appearance in the streets in their naval uniforms and their casual references to their ships close at hand. Somebody was unkind enough to declare that the subs had started their journey from the coast on Armistice Day, but I am sure this must be a libel.