From the moment they left the gates the road was encumbered with huge gray motor-trucks, limousines, motor-cycles, long trains of artillery, army kitchens, supply waggons, all the familiar elements of the procession he had so often watched unrolling itself endlessly east and west from the Atlantic to the Alps. Nothing new in the sight—but something new in the faces! A look of having got beyond the accident of living, and accepted what lay over the edge, in the dim land of the final. He had seen that look too in the days before the Marne . . .

Most of the faces on the way were French: as far as Epernay they met their compatriots only in isolated groups. But whenever one of the motor-trucks lumbering by bore a big U. S. on its rear panel Troy pushed his light ambulance ahead and skimmed past, just for the joy of seeing the fresh young heads rising pyramid-wise above the sides of the lorry, hearing the snatches of familiar songs—"Hail, hail, the gang's all here!" and "We won't come back till it's over over here!"—and shouting back in reply to a stentorian "Hi, kid, beat it!", "Bet your life I will, old man!"

Hubert Jacks, the young fellow who was with him, shouted back too, as lustily; but between times he was more occupied with the details of their own particular job—to which he was newer than Troy—and seemed not to feel so intensely the weight of impending events.

As they neared the Montmirail monument: "Ever been over this ground before?" Troy asked carelessly.

And Jacks answered: "N-no."

"Ah—I have. I was here just after the battle of the Marne, in September, 'fourteen."

"That so? You must have been quite a kid," said Jacks with indifference, filling his pipe.

"Well—not quite," Troy rejoined sulkily; and they said no more.

At Epernay they stopped for lunch, and found the place swarming with troops. Troy's soul was bursting within him: he wanted to talk and remember and compare. But his companion was unimaginative, and perhaps a little jealous of his greater experience. "He doesn't want to show that he's new at the job," Troy decided.

They lunched together in a corner of the packed restaurant, and while they were taking coffee some French officers came up and chatted with Troy. To all of them he felt the desperate need of explaining that he was driving an ambulance only because he was still too young to be among the combatants.

"But I sha'n't be—soon!" he always added, in the tone of one who affirms: "It's merely a matter of a few weeks now."

"Oh, you all look like babies—but you all fight like devils," said a young French lieutenant seasoned by four years at the front; and another officer added gravely: "Make haste to be old enough, cher Monsieur. We need you all—every one of you . . ."

"Oh, we're coming—we're all coming!" Troy cried.