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CHAPTER VI
BACK AT MAIN HEADQUARTERS
IT
is twelve o’clock and in the yard stands a covered car
with chauffeur and N.C.O., fat and jolly looking. It
comes from Cologne and has been to take out Liebesgaben
to the soldiers at the front. In token hereof it carries on its
dash-board the green and white flag of the Rhine Province
and the red and white flag of the City of Cologne. I take leave
of the chateau personnel and drive away from Stenay just as
two German airmen ascend in humming spirals into the
brilliant bright blue sky to reconnoitre the French positions.
The little city gate with its arched tunnel disappears behind
us and once more we are spinning along the road, which has
now recovered from the rain to such an extent that we actually
leave a trail of dust behind us.
Now begin the old familiar scenes, these incredible masses
of marching troops, supply columns—here made up chiefly
of requisitioned vehicles on the way to the intermediate base
or the fighting line—and motor-driven ambulance trains with
the badly wounded, travelling in our direction soon to return to
fetch fresh patients for the hospitals on the lines of communi-
cation. Presently we catch up to and pass a convoy of several
hundred French prisoners marching three abreast with a
German soldier for every twentieth or thirtieth man. The
prisoners include a captain, who marches dejectedly with
bent head after the heavy blow which fate has dealt him and
his men.
Here is the village of Chauvency, and’ we pass under the
arch of its railway bridge, where the sentry orders us to halt.
A supply column of tremendous length is just on the point
of crossing by the temporary bridge over La Chiers, resting
on the almost dry river-bed close to the permanent bridge
which had been blown up by the French. Between the trees
on the other bank we catch sight now and again of fresh
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