“I tell you, William, and you, too, Mr. Pugh, that we are going to see strange things before very long. What would you say if I told you that the Germans had broken through the French lines and were headed for Paris?” “I’d say,” said Pugh, “that I don’t wondah a damn bit. Them damn Frogs is always asleep. They’re too pretty to kill a mosquito.” Fosbrook, taking hold of Hicks’s shoulder-strap and holding it grimly, set his mouth with firmness, and, with a full pause between each word, said: “William, I mean it. There’s going to be hell to pay in a few days.” “Well, why are you worrying?” Hicks answered. “You won’t be in any of it.” “Come on, Hicksy, we’d better go.” People were beginning to open the shutters of the houses on either side of the street, and both men began to wonder how long they had been away from the platoon. They hurried back, arriving just as the platoon had started slowly to move forward. * * * * * No one seemed to have the least notion of the direction in which the camions were moving. Though some of the men who had been reading a recent copy of the Paris edition of the Chicago _Tribune_, believed them to be headed for the Somme, where, it was said, there was heavy fighting; others believed that they were on their way to relieve the First American Division, which a few days earlier had attacked at Cantigny. Apparently the trip was to last for two or more days, for each squad had been apportioned two days’ extra rations before entraining. The drivers of the camions were Japanese, which, as purveyors of information, made them as useful as do many “professional” silent men of the President’s cabinet. With twenty men in each camion the train bumped and thundered along the road all day. At night they stopped only a few minutes to allow the soldiers to prepare themselves for a still longer journey. Late the next afternoon they passed a city which they decided was Meaux. The men in the camions did not know where they were going, but they did know that it was in the direction of the front. In the town the streets were crowded with wagons, carts, domestic animals, and people. Comforters were thrown out over the hard pavement, and families were lying on them, resting. It seemed as if the entire city was so filled with people that one other person could not get in. The camions hurried through, while the men inside, leaning forward, shouted “couche” and other words of which they did not know the meaning whenever they saw any youngish women. Leaving Meaux, the spirit of attack already seemed to be entering the men. Outside the city they met an old man with a patriarchal beard, seated upon his household goods, which were piled upon a little cart driven by a mule. Beside the cart walked a woman that might have been either his wife or his daughter. The old man looked as if he were crying. His mouth was drawn back into a querulous pucker and his hands rested limply in his lap.