Even the sights on the earth were of interest. The tall Gothic towers on the hill at Mt. St. Eloy were silhouetted against the blue of the sky, on our right. On the extreme left was an emaciated forest, standing out against the horizon; and between these two land-marks were countless acres of cultivated ground, just about to give forth the first sprouts of the hoped-for harvest. Here and there the white walls of the limestone farm houses, with their red-tiled roofs, broke the monotony; and about the center of the picture a group of them with the shell-shattered spire of a church in their midst formed the village of Villers aux Bois. To the left of this latter place lay a peaceful cemetery with some two thousand graves of British, French, and Canadian soldiers who had given up their lives on the blood-stained soil of France in the cause of liberty. Distinctly we could see through glasses a padre saying prayers for the dead over the bodies of some of the allied soldiers which were being laid in the newly-dug graves.
Beyond the cemetery a road twisted here and there, and along it hurried from time to time motor ambulances, with the large, red cross on their sides; motor lorries, full of food and munitions; limbers, painted in vari-colored patterns, and looking like a calithumpian procession, to make them inconspicuous against the earth to the German aviators; large guns drawn by strings of horses; pack mules with their burdens of shells; and motor cyclists hurrying forward or rearward with messages.
And all this in the cause of the great god, Mars!