“If only we could be allowed to go on for another three months!” pursued the Colonel earnestly. “If only this great beautiful machine of an American Army could be given a chance to climb to its top speed! Then we should be functioning in proper shape—with our own guns, and our own tanks, plenty of horse-transport, and sufficient airplanes to direct our own fire and locate the enemy’s. We should be employing acquired experience instead of borrowed experience. We should have a trained Staff. We could send these great-hearted boys of ours into action adequately protected by a perfectly timed barrage. We could cut down our casualties seventy-five per cent, and make future victories a real matter for rejoicing. Of course it won’t matter to the folks at home. They have no opportunity to discriminate. They would cheer themselves hoarse over us if we were a Sanitary Section from the Base. But—we should like to show our friends over here what the American Army really is and not merely what it is going to be. And—we could extract some sort of adequate interest from the capital—the capital of our men’s lives—that we have been sinking in this year’s campaign. But there isn’t time! There isn’t time!” The old soldier’s gnarled fist dropped despairingly upon the trestle table. “We are still on our second speed, and however hard we may step on the gas, we can’t get real results for a little while to come. There isn’t time!” There was a pause, while another salvo burst overhead. Then Jim Nichols asked:— “Colonel, just why are you so sure? Is Peace really on the way?” (Certainly, the question was worth asking. Within the past five days the following rumours have reached us, _seriatim_, supported by every variety of unreliable testimony:— (1) Austria is trying to quit. (2) The German Fleet has come out and surrendered. (3) Kiel is in the hands of mutineers. (4) The Kaiser and the Crown Prince have abdicated. (5) Germany has asked for Peace, and Foch has given her seventy-two hours to accept his terms.) “Not peace,” replied the Colonel, “nor anything like it. But an armistice may come any day. From all accounts the Hun is willing to submit to almost any terms so long as he can get out now, while the going is any good at all. That looks as if his military discipline were growing shaky—or else his civilian morale. Perhaps both. Anyway, he seems suspiciously anxious to quit. The real question is, What are we going to do about it?”