At any rate we eventually
found ourselves in a road that wound between high grassy banks along a
great natural terrace just below the level of the plateau in front of
Laon. We saw a few farmhouses, all desolated by shellfire and all
deserted, and a succession of empty fields and patches of woodland.
None of the natives were in sight. Through fear of prying hostile eyes,
the Germans had seen fit to clear them out of this immediate vicinity.
Anyhow, a majority of them doubtlessly ran away when fighting first
started here, three weeks earlier; the Germans had got rid of those who
remained. Likewise of troops there were very few to be seen. We did
meet one squad of Red Cross men, marching afoot through the dust. They
were all fully armed, as is the way with the German field-hospital
helpers; and, for all I know to the contrary, that may be the way with
the field-hospital helpers of the Allies too.
Though I have often seen it, the Cross on the sleeve-band of a man who
bears a revolver in his belt, or a rifle on his arm, has always struck
me as a most incongruous thing.
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