Six days later, in the darkness and cold of an early spring morning, the party of six women, accompanied by the French Senator and David Hale left Paris, arriving a little before noon at a French wayside station where the line of railroad communication direct from Paris had never been destroyed throughout the war. Awaiting them was not one but two motors, each containing a French officer as well as the chauffeur. Into one Miss Patricia Lord, Bettina Graham, Marguerite Arnot and David Hale entered and the other was filled by Mrs. Burton, Senator Duval, Yvonne Fleury and Peggy Webster.
By noon a little pale March sunshine had come filtering through the clouds, faintly warming the earth.
A curious scene surrounded the wayside station. Stacked in long lines down the road leading from it were broken and disused cannons and machine guns, German and French. There were also giant piles of steel helmets, pieces of shell, twisted and rusted bayonets, all the tragic refuse of a cleared battleground after the fury of war has passed.
The spectacle was too grim to inspire much conversation.
Further along there were open spaces which showed where the French and American camps had stood behind the fighting lines. But the tents themselves had been folded and the paraphernalia of life moved on with the Army of Occupation to the left bank of the Rhine.
In the present vicinity there were no birds to be seen, no trees, no signs of vegetation, only the desolation which follows on the heels of war.
Bettina Graham, who was sitting next David Hale in the rapidly moving French car, shivered and clasped her hands tightly together inside her fur muff.
“Is this your first visit to the devastated French country, Miss Graham? I wonder if you won’t regret the trip? It does not seem to me that girls and women should look upon such things as we may see today, except of course Miss Lord, who appears to have a special reason. Yet she insists as many Americans as possible should visit the French battleground later when peace is declared. Not until then can they realize what France has endured. I don’t know whether I agree with her.”
Bettina smiled, but not very gaily.
“After all you realize, Mr. Hale, that your opinion will not affect Aunt Patricia. And we of course have seen portions of the devastated French country in our work on the Aisne, but nothing like this.”