"
"That's my opinion, too," said John. "I saw its wonderful work in the
retreat toward Paris. I think it saved the early French armies from
destruction."
The German army was made of stern material. Having planted its feet here
it refused to be driven back. Its cannon was a line of flaming
volcanoes, its cavalry charged again and again into the face of death,
and its infantry perished in masses, but the stern old general spared
nothing. Passing up and down the lines, listening at the telephone and
receiving the reports of air scouts and land scouts, he always hurled
in fresh troops at the critical points and Fritz and Karl and Wilhelm
and August, sober and honest men, went forward willingly, sometimes
singing and sometimes in silence, to die for a false and outworn system.
John as a prisoner had a better view than he would have had if with the
French army. In a country open now he could see a full mile to right and
left, where the German hosts marched again and again to attack, and
while the French troops were too far away for his eyes he beheld the
continuous flare of their fire, like a broad red ribbon across the whole
western horizon.
The passing of time was nothing to him. He forgot all about it in his
absorption. But the sun climbed on, afternoon came, and still the battle
at this point raged, the French unable to drive the Germans farther and
the Germans unable to stop the French attacks. John roused himself and
endeavored to dissociate the thunder on their flanks from that in front,
and, after long listening, he was able to make the separation, or at
least he thought so.
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