One old Frenchman told us that he had once lived in Montreal, and had a little shop there, but had come home two years before the war. The Germans, he said, had taken everything away from them and destroyed their homes.
We tried to tell them of the victories the French and Americans had achieved, but they could not believe it; for the Germans had told them that they were besieging Paris and that London had been destroyed. It was hard to convince these poor people of the truth, and they still shrank at our approach.
We remained with them two hours or more and then, fearing that some of the Huns might return, we resumed our journey, which, with the information the Frenchman gave us, and a little compass that Gordon carried offered fair directions for reaching our lines.
When morning came we recognized by the sound of guns and in other ways known to soldiers, that we were near the German lines. We found a hiding place in a field where there were some stacks of straw, and soon saw the troops of the enemy moving over the near-by roads.
“I judge,” I said, “that there is going to be a fight near here, and the enemy are concentrating for it; but I believe it is a rear-guard action, to make their way clear for still further retreat.”
It was not long before an outburst of artillery and machine-gun fire confirmed this belief. The sound of combat grew nearer and nearer showing that the Boches were falling back.
“Let’s get out of this,” said Gordon, “for the enemy will be falling back here before long, and we will be caught. When it comes night, they will be after this straw for bedding.”
It was fortunate that we got away when we did, for before long we saw soldiers going into the field and streaming back with sheaves of straw.
In another hour by crawling through a bit of woodland we came to an abandoned village which, apparently, the Huns had occupied, and which now was a wrecked heap of masonry and jagged walls. Here we thought no human being would resort, or Huns approach, for there was nothing to steal or destroy, but to our surprise we came upon an aged couple still clinging to their ruined home. They had a few tattered bed clothes and garments, some wheat that they had apparently gathered from the near-by fields, a few potatoes, but not a scrap of bread or meat. Their condition was so pitiable that we attempted in our poor French to condole with them. They must have partially understood, for the old man shook his head and with trembling voice said, “C’est la guerre.”
Thus we traveled for several nights, lying very close during the day, without incident worthy of record except getting wet and tired. The country hereabouts was rough and hilly and sparsely inhabited by French speaking people, mostly of the peasant class, with whom we came in contact but twice, and that in an accidental way.