There were long trains of refugees streaming back from the battle-fields; pitiful peasant-people with horse-carts and dog-carts and even wheelbarrows, toothless old men and women trudging alongside, children and babies stuck in amidst bedding and furniture and saucepans and bird-cages.  This was war, as the common people saw it; but Jimmie could not stop now to think about it—­Jimmie was on his way to the front!  There were big observation balloons up over his head, looking like huge grey elephants with broad ears; there were aeroplanes whirring about, performing incredible acrobatic feats, and spraying each other with showers of steel; but Jimmie had no time for a single glance at these marvels—­Jimmie was on his way to the front!

He swept around a curve, and there directly in front of him was a hole in the middle of the road, as big as if a steam-shovel had been working for a week.  Jimmie clapped on the brakes, and swerved sideways, missing a tree and plunging into a cabbage patch.  He got off and said, “Gee!” once or twice; and suddenly it was as if he were whacked on the side of the ear with a twelve-inch board—­the whole world about him turned into a vast roar of sound, and a mountain of grey smoke leaped into being in front of him.  Jimmie stared, and saw out of a little clump of bushes a long black object thrust itself out, like the snout of a gigantic tapir from some prehistoric age.  It was a ten-inch gun, coming back from its recoil; and Jimmie, smelling its fumes, struggled back to the road with his machine, before the monster should speak again and stifle him entirely.

There was a frame-house in the distance, and in front of it a barnyard, and sheds with thatched roofs.  There came a scream, exactly like the siren of Hook and Ladder Company Number One that used to go tearing about the streets in Leesville, U.S.A; a light flashed in one of the sheds, and everything disappeared in a burst of smoke, which spread itself in the air like a huge duster made from turkey feathers.  There came another shriek, a little nearer, and the ground rose in a huge black mushroom, which boiled and writhed like the clouds of an advancing thunderstorm.  Boom!  Boom!  Two vast, all-pervading roars came to Jimmie’s ears; and his knees began to quake.  By heck!  He was under fire!  He looked ahead; there must be Germans just up there!  Was a fellow supposed to ride on without knowing?

There was a big battle on, that much was certain; but the uproar was so distributed that one could hardly tell whether it was in front or behind.  However, the transport was steadily advancing—­horse-wagons, mule-wagons, motor-wagons, all plodding patiently, paying no heed to the shell-bursts.  And then Jimmie took a look behind, and saw that infernal red-headed Orangeman!  He imagined a raucous voice, shouting:  “C’mon here!  Whatcher waitin’ fer?” Jimmie bounced on to his machine and turned her loose!