“I was thinking, sir,” he told Hinchcliffe, “That I have witnessed a scene like that, in my time.” His words came in a little pause in the conversation of the others, so that they all heard, and waited for him to continue. And Hinchcliffe ventured to urge quietly: “Tell us.” The Frenchman lifted his hand in a deprecating fashion; they insisted. He sipped at his glass, and in the end he nodded. Barton lighted a fresh cigar. Hinchcliffe shifted to a more comfortable position in his chair. Hughes beckoned the nearest attendant with a silent forefinger. The Frenchman began to speak. His tone was level and unemotional; his articulation was precise. Only an odd construction of sentences now and then betrayed his unfamiliarity with the tongue. His eyes were on the framed print upon the wall; and they seemed to look through it, and beyond.... II It was, in the beginning, (said the old Frenchman) one of those valorous and devoted regiments to which fall the hardest and most honorable tasks. The men came, for the most part, from the Argonne; they were rugged stock, men of the farms and of the hills. Simple, and direct.... Good soldiers.... And Frenchmen. It chanced that when the war came, this regiment fought in its own homeland. The men knew every foot of the hills they defended, the ravines which they turned into death traps, the forests through which they marched, the meadows where they skirmished. They knew this land, and by the same token, they loved it. It was as though they had their roots in the soil. They could not be torn from it. They waited for the Germans at ten kilometres from the frontier--you remember, my friends, how we waited for them there so that they might not say we had provoked the conflict--and when the Germans came, this regiment stopped its immediate foe and held the Germans in their tracks. At this time, the French invasion toward Muelhausen was prospering; but at the same time, the Germans were crushing Belgium, and pouring through, so that they turned our flank and we were forced to go back. That was unpleasant, and for a little time, at the very first, it was dangerous. But in a few days we were safely disengaged, and the enemy was exhausting himself to come up with us, and our counter stroke was preparing. But to give us time for this retreat and preparation, certain organizations had to be sacrificed. This regiment was one. It was ordered to stand firm, to hold.... It held. The enemy attacked on the front and was repulsed; but on either side, our lines gave way, and the second day saw the regiment attacked on the right flank, and the left. It was well posted, upon a hill that dominated two good roads, and it held.... But the Germans poured past them on either side; and in the press of more important matters to the southward, the work of overwhelming this regiment was delayed. A containing force was left to hold them, starve them.... And the main battle swept away and left them stranded there.