As I recall now we had come through the gate of the schoolhouse to where
the automobiles stood when a puff of wind, blowing to us from the left,
which meant from across the battlefront, brought to our noses a certain
smell which we already knew full well.
"You get it, I see," said the German officer who stood alongside me.
"It comes from three miles off, but you can get it five miles distant
when the wind is strong. That"--and he waved his left arm toward it as
though the stench had been a visible thing--"that explains why tobacco
is so scarce with us among the staff back yonder in Laon. All the
tobacco which can be spared is sent to the men in the front trenches.
As long as they smoke and keep on smoking they can stand--that!
"You see," he went on painstakingly, "the situation out there at Cerny
is like this: The French and English, but mainly the English, held the
ground firSt. We drove them back and they lost very heavily. In places
their trenches were actually full of dead and dying men when we took
those trenches.
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