At any rate we eventually found ourselves in a road that wound between high grassy banks along a great natural terrace just below the level of the plateau in front of Laon.

We saw a few farmhouses, all desolated by shellfire and all deserted, and a succession of empty fields and patches of woodland.
None of the natives were in sight.

Through fear of prying hostile eyes, the Germans had seen fit to clear them out of this immediate vicinity.
Anyhow, a majority of them doubtlessly ran away when fighting first started here, three weeks earlier; the Germans had got rid of those who remained.

Likewise of troops there were very few to be seen.

We did meet one squad of Red Cross men, marching afoot through the dust.