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i86 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
denote the flight of time. It is German time that they show,
and it is important that they should be working, not so that
the priests may know their hours of duty, for they need no
clocks, but in order that the transport trains, the soldiers, the
sentries and the green-clad military police posted round
Turenne’s statue and at other points may know when they
shall relieve or be relieved—and last, but not least, in order
that the civil population may know how long it is to nightfall.
Anyone found loitering in the dark is shot if his papers are
not in perfect order and if he cannot show that he is out on a
lawful and proper errand.
But the clock tower strikes its five deliberate strokes and
it is time for us to return to Vouziers, if we mean to arrive
before it is quite dark. I cast a final glance at the houses
opposite, where some windows are open and give me little
snapshots into the interior—not of domestic French life, but
of German billeting scenes ; other windows are closed and
further protected by green and white shutters. I have reached
this stage in my reflections, when a tall gentleman comes up
to me and introduces himself as Baron Bleichröder of Dresden.
He is wearing a uniform which I cannot quite place within
the somewhat narrow limits of my military knowledge, and I
therefore hit upon the simple question, " What are you doing
here, Baron ?
" "I have brought with me twenty-nine motor-
lorries of Liebesgaben for the troops," he answers. " The
lorries are filled to the roof with little parcels of cigars, cigarettes,
pipe-tobacco, underclothing, socks, handkerchiefs, newspapers,
chocolate and other things the soldiers like."
At last we took our leave and proceeded in a south-westerly
direction, with the rapidly setting sun before us on our right.
There was something remarkable about the sunsets at this
time. To-night it was a glowing, burning red, and the sky
around was tinted in the same gorgeous colouring. But it
made me think of the long, bloody trail now stretching from
Belfort to the sea in the north-west, a distance of about four
hundred miles. Here the soldiers lie in an unbroken row of
trenches, so closely together that a word of command or a
piece of news can be repeated from ear to ear from Middelkerke
to Altkirch ; allowing only one man for every metre, this makes
a total of six hundred thousand men. But the density is in
reality far greater, and one is almost stunned at the thought
that Germany, which in the east, too, has an enormous front
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