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Page 20
The road led across low hills, and down slopes which he knew were kissed
by a warm sun in summer. It was here that the vines flourished, but the
snow could not hide the fact that it was torn and trampled now. Huge
armies had surged back and forth over it, and yet John, who was of a
thoughtful mind, knew that in a few more summers it would be as it had
been before. In this warm and watered France Nature would clothe the
earth in a green robe which winter itself could not wholly drive away.
A reader of history, he knew that Europe had been torn and ravaged by
war, times past counting, and yet geologically it was among the youngest
and freshest of lands. Everything would pass and new youth would take
the place of the youth that the shells and bullets were now carrying
away.
He shook himself. Reflections like these were for men of middle years.
The tide of his own youth flowed back upon him and the world, even under
snow and with stray guns thundering behind him, was full of splendor.
Moreover, there was the village of Chastel before him! Chastel! Chastel!
He had never heard of it until two or three days ago, and yet it now
loomed in his mind as large as Paris or New York. Julie must have
arrived already, and he would see her again after so many months of
hideous war, but deep down in his mind persisted the belief that she
should not have come. Lannes must have had some reason that he could not
surmise, or he would not have written the letter asking her to meet him
at Chastel.
The village, he learned from one of the men in the automobile, was only
ten miles away and it was built upon a broad, low hill at the base of
which a little river flowed. It was very ancient. A town of the Belg�
stood there in C�sar's time, but it contained not more than two thousand
inhabitants, and its chief feature was a very beautiful Gothic
cathedral.
John's automobile could have reached Chastel in less than an hour,
despite the snow and the slush, but the train of the wounded was
compelled to move slowly, and he must keep with it. Meanwhile he scanned
the sky with powerful glasses, which he had been careful to secure after
his escape from Auersperg. Nearly all officers carried strong glasses in
this war, and yet even to the keenest eyes the hosts of the air were
visible only in part.
John now and then saw telephone wires running through the clumps of
forest and across the fields. There was a perfect web of them, reaching
all the way from Alsace and the Forest of Argonne to the sea. Generals
talked to one another over them, and over these wires the signal
officers sent messages to the men in the batteries telling them how to
fire their guns.
The telegraph, too, was at work. The wires were clicking everywhere, and
the air was filled also with messages which went on no wires at all,
but which took invisible wings unto themselves. The wireless, despite
its constant use, remained a mystery and wonder to John. One of his most
vivid memories was that night on the roof of the ch�teau, when Wharton
talked through space to the German generals, and learned their plans.
He looked up now and his eyes were shut, but he almost fancied that he
could see the words passing in clouds over his head, written on nothing,
but there, nevertheless, the most mysterious and, in some ways, the most
powerful part of the hosts of the air, the hosts that within a
generation had changed the ways of armies and battles. He opened his
eyes and found himself searching for aeroplanes, the most tangible
portion of those hosts of the air, with which man had to fight. He saw
several behind him, where the French and German lines almost met, but
there was no shape resembling the _Arrow_.
The aeroplanes and Zeppelins had been much less active since winter had
come in full tide. They were essentially birds of sunshine and fair
weather, liking but little clouds and storms. And as the skies still
looked very threatening John judged that they would not be abroad much
that day. The conditions were far from promising, as a heavy massing of
the clouds in the southwest indicated more snow.
"There is Chastel, sir," said Mallet, his chauffeur. "You can see the
steeple of the cathedral shining through the clouds."
John's eyes followed the pointing finger, and he caught a high gleam,
although all beneath was a mass of floating gray mist. But he knew it
was a few beams of the sun piercing through the clouds and striking upon
some solid object. He put the glasses to his eyes and then he was able
to discern an old, old town, standing on a cliff above a stream that he
would have called a creek at home. Some of the houses were of stone, and
others were of timber and concrete, but it was evident that war had
passed already over Chastel. As he rode nearer he beheld buildings
ruined by shells or fire. Many of them seemed to be razed almost level
with the ground. The evidences of battle were everywhere. He surmised
that it had been held for a while by the Germans on their retreat from
the Marne, and that the lighting there had been desperate.
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