The gray-haired archbishop, a Prince of Men as well as a Prince of the Church, stepped quietly between them. "Very well, my children," he said, "but you will fire on me first." The demon-shriek of the shells continued, the drumming of gunfire continued, but in the crowd there was silence. Then, with that sudden response to greatness which lies hid in the hearts of all men, the crowd leaped forward as one man to save the wounded men for whom, a moment before, they had been clamoring to see burned alive. And, through the whole scene, the statue of Joan of Arc looked on at the brave act of a prelate she would have delighted to honor and the recognition of courage by the people she herself gave her own life to save. FOOTNOTES: [19] By order of numbering, this was the 7th Army. Just why it was officially designated the 9th is still unknown. CHAPTER VIII DIGGING IN A winter compounded of rain and fire had settled down heavily over the Aisne Valley and the plain of Champagne, from Rheims to Verdun. The chalky soil oozed gray and--red. Deadlocked, their grip at each other's throats, German and Frenchman watched each other across a narrow, noisome waste, now and forever to become the symbol of all that is most horrible, most deadly, most pitiable: No Man's Land! Tens of thousands of men waited for the word of command which should bid them expose themselves to the unsated appetite of hungry slaughter, tens of thousands of men waited inactive while death and mutilation chose them, one by one. A gray soil, a gray sky, and a gray doom. The only thing that moved was the shuddering skin of the earth as the bullets flayed it in streaks or the shells dug deep holes like the festering sores of a foul disease. Not a blade of grass, not a weed, not a shrub remained; where leafy woods once had been, now only a few scarred and slivered stumps pointed accusing fingers upward. It was Chaos come again. Where were the shouting hosts charged with valor, such as those who had driven forward at La Fère Champenoise, when Foch's army saved France? Gone! Where were the gallant fights to save the guns, when men met in open combat under the open sky? Gone! Where were the cavalry charges when squadrons with saber or with lance clashed in a deadly but glorious shock? Gone! Where were the armies that had fought hand to hand in the streets of Charleroi; that had snatched at and escaped from death alternately in the great retreat; that had hurled themselves at each other with equal fury in the attack or the defense of Paris; that had charged up the slopes of Le Grand Couronne and the bluffs of the Aisne with equal gallantry, and, dying, still had shaken their fists in the face of Slaughter? Gone, all gone! Aye, gone indeed, but where? Dug in!