He coughed now and then, and he
observed that men around him coughed also. But, on the whole, the army
was singularly still, the soldiers straining eye or ear to see something
or hear more of the titanic struggle that was raging on either side of
them.
John again searched the horizon eagerly with his glasses, but it showed
only green hills and bits of wood, bare of human activity. The French
aeroplanes still hovered, but not in front of General Vaugirard. They
were off to right and left, where the wings of the nations had closed in
combat. He was ceasing to think of the foes as armies, but as nations in
battle line. Here stood not a French army, but France, and there stood
not a German army, but Germany.
As he looked toward the left he picked out a narrow road, running
between hedges, and showing but a strip of white even through the
glasses. He saw something coming along this road. It was far away when
he first noticed it, but it was coming with great speed, and he was soon
able to tell that it was a man on a motor cycle. His pulse leaped
again. He felt instinctively that the rider was for them and that he
bore something of great import. The figure, man and cycle, molded into
one, sped along the narrow road which led to the base of the hill on
which General Vaugirard and his staff stood.
The huge general saw the approaching figure too, and he began to whistle
melodiously like the note of a piccolo, with the vast thunder of the
guns accompanying him as an orchestra.
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