The colonel was very vigilant against these gas attacks. He had equipped the only shelter I have seen devoted solely to the preparation of defenses against them. We learned several new facts concerning this hideous form of warfare. One was that the Germans now launch the gas most frequently at night when the men cannot see it approach, and, in consequence, before they can snap the masks into place, they are suffocated, and in great agony die. They have learned much about the gas, but chiefly by bitter experience. Two hours after one of the attacks an officer seeking his field-glasses descended into his shelter. The gas that had flooded the trenches and then floated away still lurked below. And in a moment the officer was dead. The warning was instantly flashed along the trenches from the North Sea to Switzerland, and now after a gas raid, before any one enters a shelter, it is attacked by counter-irritants, and the poison driven from ambush. I have never seen better discipline than obtained in that chalk quarry, or better spirit. There was not a single outside element to aid discipline or to inspire morale. It had all to come from within. It had all to spring from the men themselves and from the example set by their officers. The enemy fought against them, the elements fought against them, the place itself was as cheerful as a crutch. The clay climbed from their feet to their hips, was ground into their uniforms, clung to their hands and hair. The rain chilled them, the wind, cold, damp, and harsh, stabbed through their greatcoats. Their outlook was upon graves, their resting-places dark caverns, at which even a wolf would look with suspicion. And yet they were all smiling, eager, alert. In the whole command we saw not one sullen or wistful face. It is an old saying: "So the colonel, so the regiment." But the splendid spirit I saw on the heights of the Meuse is true not only of that colonel and of that regiment, but of the whole five hundred miles of trenches, and of all France. * * * * * February, 1916. When I was in Verdun, the Germans, from a distance of twenty miles, had dropped three shells into Nancy and threatened to send more. That gave Nancy an interest which Verdun lacked. So I was intolerant of Verdun and anxious to hasten on to Nancy. To-day Nancy and her three shells are forgotten, and to all the world the place of greatest interest is Verdun. Verdun has been Roman, Austrian, and not until 1648 did she become a part of France. This is the fourth time she has been attacked--by the Prussians in 1792, again by the Germans in 1870, when, after a gallant defense of three weeks, she surrendered, and in October of 1914.