A certain number of inhabitants are still living in the village of Revigny.  You see everywhere placards announcing “Caves pour 25,” “Caves pour 100,” and each person knows to which cellar he is to go if a Taube should start bombing the village.  I saw one cellar marked “120 persons, specially safe, reserved for the children.”  Children are one of the most valuable assets of France, and a good old Territorial “Pe-Pere” (Daddy), as they are nicknamed, told me that it was his special but difficult duty to muster the children directly a Taube was signalled and chase them down into the cellar.  Mopping his brow he assured me that it was not easy to catch the little beggars, who hid in the ruins, behind the army wagons, anywhere to escape the “parental” eye, even standing in rain barrels up to their necks in water.  It is needless to add they consider it a grave infringement of their personal liberty and think that they should be allowed to remain in the open and see all that goes on, just as the little Londoners beg and coax to be allowed to stay up “to see the Zepps.”

Passing the railway station we stopped to make some enquiries, and promptly ascertained all we wished to know from the Chef de Gare.  In the days of peace there is in France no one more officious than the station master of a small but prosperous village.  Now he is the meekest of men.  Braided cap in hand he goes along the train from carriage door to carriage door humbly requesting newspapers for the wounded in the local hospitals:  “Nous avons cent vingt cinq blesses ici, cela les fait tant de plaisir d’avoir des nouvelles.” (We have 125 wounded here and they love to hear the news.)

In addition to levying a toll on printed matter, he casts a covetous and meaning glance on any fruit or chocolate that may be visible.  Before the train is out of the station, you can see the once busy, and in his own opinion, all-important railway official, vanishing down the road to carry his spoils to his suffering comrades.  Railway travelling is indeed expensive in France.  No matter what time of day or night, wet or fine, the trains are met at each station by devoted women who extract contributions for the Red Cross Funds from the pockets of willing givers.  It is only fair to state, however, that in most instances the station master gets there first.

At The Headquarters Of General Petain

From the time we left Revigny until we had passed into the Champagne country, upon the return journey from Verdun, we no longer saw a green tree or a blade of green grass; we were now indeed upon the “White Road which leads unto Verdun.”  Owing to an exceptionally trying and dry summer the roads are thick with white dust.  The continual passing of the camions, the splendid transport wagons of the French Army, carrying either food, munitions, or troops, has stirred up the dust and coated the fields, trees and hedges with a thick layer of white.  It is almost as painful to the eyes as the snow-fields of the Alps.