The gouges of wheels and feet were at the roadside.

Under the broken hedge-rows you saw a littering of weather-beaten French knapsacks and mired uniform coats, but that was all.

New grass was springing up in the hoof tracks, and in a pecking, puny sort of way an effort was being made by certain French peasants within sight to get back to work in their wasted truck patches.

Near at hand I counted three men and an old woman in the fields, bent over like worms.

On the crest above them stood this gray veteran of two invasions of their land, aiming with his riding whip.