After breakfasting, Miss Lane took her friend by the elbow and led her to the great military map on the wall, with the position of the battle-line clearly defined upon it by an irregular frontier of red worsted, and said: “Helen, listen! Just where are we on this little old map?” Miss Ryker, who possessed the unusual feminine accomplishment of being able to read maps and railroad time-tables, laid a slender finger-tip upon the blue chalk-mark which designated the geographical position of the hospital. “There,” she said. “And,” pursued Miss Lane, in a low voice, “_where do we go from here_?” Miss Ryker, who was a girl of few words, began to measure out distances with her finger and thumb. “The nearest point to us,” she announced at last, “is a place called Delficelles.” “Delficelles? Our boys captured it not long ago,” said Frances in confirmation. “I guess the trenches must lie just beyond.” On one point she was right: Delficelles had been captured by an American Division a fortnight previously. On the other she was wrong, for a reason which will presently appear. “We are going to visit them,” continued Miss Lane. “How do we get there?” enquired her practical friend. Miss Lane looked stealthily round, as a precaution against eavesdroppers. Then she smiled seraphically. “I guess we can do it on our faces,” she remarked. * * * * * To get up into the Line—that tortured strip of territory, some five miles wide, which winds from the North Sea to the Alps, and within which two solid walls of men have faced one another for nearly four years—there are two recognized courses of procedure. One is to be a member of an armed party—an Infantry Battalion, say, going up to take over a sector of trenches. There is no doubting the _bona fides_ of such an excursion. The other course is incumbent upon solitary individuals like despatch-riders and unchaperoned civilians. These must have a much-signed and countersigned pass. Even Staff Officers are not exempt from this law. That lesson was learned as far back as nineteen fourteen, when German officers, arrayed in the uniform of the British General Staff, kindly accompanied the British Army during the retreat from Mons and added to the already considerable difficulties of a hectic situation by directing troops down wrong roads and issuing orders of a demoralizing nature.