Christophe, we came at dusk to a place where a company of German
infantrymen were in camp about a big graystone farmhouse. They were
cooking supper over big trench fires and, as usual, they were singing.
The light shone up into the faces of the cooks, bringing out in ruddy
relief their florid skins and yellow beards. A yearling bull calf was
tied to a supply-wagon wheel, bellowing his indignation. I imagine he
quit bellowing shortly thereafter.
An officer came to the edge of the road and, peering sharply at us over
a broken hedge, made as if to stop us; then changed his mind and
permitted us to go unchallenged. Entering the town, we proceeded,
winding our way among pack trains and stalled motor trucks, to the town
square. Our little cavalcade halted to the accompaniment of good-
natured titterings from many officers in front of the town house of the
Prince de Caraman-Chimay.
By a few Americans the prince is remembered as having been the cousin of
one of the husbands of the much-married Clara Ward, of Detroit; but at
this moment, though absent, he had particularly endeared himself to the
Germans through the circumstance of his having left behind, in his wine
cellars, twenty thousand bottles of rare vintages.
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