Indeed, I think until then this weapon had not been used against the Germans in this particular area of the western theater of war.

These officers passed it about, fingering it in turn, and commenting on the design of it and the possibilities of its use.
"Typically French," the senior of them said at length, handing it back to its owner, the Red Cross man--"a very clever idea too; but it might be bettered, I think." He pondered a moment, then added, with the racial complacence that belongs to a German military man when he considers military matters: "No doubt we shall adopt the notion; but we'll improve on the pattern and the method of discharging it.

The French usually lead the way in aerial inventions, but the Germans invariably perfect them." The day wound up and rounded out most fittingly with a trip eastward along the lines to the German siege investments in front of Rheims.

We ran for a while through damaged French hamlets, each with its soldier garrison to make up for the inhabitants who had fled; and then, a little later, through a less well-populated district.

In the fields, for long stretches, nothing stirred except pheasants, feeding on the neglected grain, and big, noisy magpies.