Then
it had been mainly infantry fighting at close range; now it was the
labored pounding of heavy guns, the pushing ahead of trench-work
preparatory to another pitched battle.
Considering what had taken place here less than a month before the plain
immediately before us seemed peaceful enough.
Nature certainly works mighty fast to cover up what man at war does.
True, the yellow-green meadowlands ahead of us were scuffed and scored
minutely as though a myriad swine had rooted there for mast. The gouges
of wheels and feet were at the roadside. Under the broken hedge-rows you
saw a littering of weather-beaten French knapsacks and mired uniform
coats, but that was all. New grass was springing up in the hoof tracks,
and in a pecking, puny sort of way an effort was being made by certain
French peasants within sight to get back to work in their wasted truck
patches. Near at hand I counted three men and an old woman in the
fields, bent over like worms. On the crest above them stood this gray
veteran of two invasions of their land, aiming with his riding whip.
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