So we set off, the rain coming down in a cold drizzle that served to make more colorful the flaring illumination, but in the intervals it rendered the darkness more opaque. Shells were bursting along the road with increasing frequency, and now and then one came very close to us. The heavens above were full of sounds of guns and planes. Between the flashes of the flares you couldn’t see your hand before you. The going was exceedingly difficult, through fields and paths of deserted farms that had recently been peopled by shells and soldiers. It seemed that the further we went, the more active things became. Shrapnel bursts came perilously near and in the darkness between the flares we stumbled into holes and picked ourselves up from muddy sprawls. Ben cursed the boches and the guide continuously, but the rest of us had enough to do to keep on our feet as much as possible. At last we came to the road and the guide said “Here we are!” as if he had done something heroic in leading us there. The General looked around and pondered. “How far are we from that regimental headquarters now?” he asked, wiping the water from his face. “Oh—not much of a walk,” answered the guide. “But I’ll bet it’s hotter’n hell out there right now.” “Which way is it?” “Straight along the main road there.” The old man again looked down the two roads. Then he turned to the guide and said, “Young man, you are free to take that side road if you want to. So also are the rest of you men. But I’m going to keep on until I come to that regimental station. I’d rather take a chance of getting hit where there’s a crowd than out on some dark cowpath that’s blooming with shrapnel.” The pill-roller hesitated a moment, then said, “All right, sir. I would rather take the side road, but you can find the station without me easy enough.” “Any of you men want to go that way?” He looked inquiringly at his wet and sorry looking retinue. “I’ll stick with you, General, sir, if ya don’t mind,” Ben piped up. “I’d rather get killed with a General than get drunk with a guy like that pill-roller.... And I’m sure Esky prefers to stick with you, General.” “Here, too,” I said, and Chilblaines, who must have wanted to go with the guide, found himself plodding along behind the gray-haired old-timer. A queer outfit to be turned loosed in a place like that: four tenderfeet and a scared pup, plowing along in mud that sometimes came up to your knees! We had not gone very far before it became apparent that the pill-roller was right about the heat of the fray increasing toward the station. The air was full of flying bits of metal, rocks, dirt, gases, and blinding flashes of light. The rain dropped on us and was not noticed in the excitement of picking our way along a few yards at a time. Injury and possible death scraped us close at almost every step.