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difference between the rumble of an artillery train and of a convoy of motor lorries, and she could tell whether the latter were loaded or empty. She could distinguish between the noises of a staff car and an ambulance and, more remarkable still, between a troop of cavalry and patrol of mounted military police. When questioned about it, she explained this last accomplishment by issuing the following ultimatum: “The keeper of a bistro must be able to smell police, or go out of business.” Soldiers stopped off there at the Café du Carrefour on purpose to ask that question and to hear the reply. They were never disappointed, unless they happened to be police.
    So she sat there, on the high-water mark of the war in those parts, sometimes within the heavy artillery zone, sipping her bowls of black coffee and enumerating to herself the various fragments of the army that beat up and down past her café, enumerating them not from any interest, patriotic or other, in military affairs, for she had none, but as so many good customers lost.
    There was a rumble on the road outside which drew nearer as she finished her bowl of coffee. She gave the stove a poke or two, lighted a candle, and blew out the lamp. She moved over to a door and, candle in hand, paused for a moment, listening.
    â€œRolling kitchens,” she said. Then she went down into her cellar and climbed into bed.
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    Colonel Dax was marching at the head of his regiment with the officer commanding its First Battalion, Major Vignon.
    â€œIt always looks like a distant thunderstorm, doesn’t it?” the major said. He was referring to the effect of sheet lightning produced by the flares along the front and the reverberating overtone of gunfire.
    â€œNot so distant, at that,” the colonel answered in a voice that did not encourage any further small talk. The major took the hint and relapsed into silence. But why, he asked himself, had he been invited to walk with his chief? Was it merely for the purpose of keeping step with him?
    â€œIt’s too bad,” the colonel was thinking, “that you can’t ask a man to walk with you without his jumping to the conclusion that you want him to talk to you too. Why can’t I say to a man, ‘Look here, I’m getting into a blue funk, as I always do at this point, and I really need your companionship. But it must be your silent companionship. I just want your bulk, your flesh near me, within touching distance. It takes the edge off my funk and helps a lot.’ But Vignon wouldn’t understand at all. He’d think I’m mad. He just hasn’t the faculty for knowing what I’m going through now. If he suspected the crisis I’m getting near, he’d consider it his duty, probably, to pull his pistol and put a bullet through my head. As a matter of fact that’s exactly why I need his presence so badly at these times. He hasn’t any nerves.”
    He was right, too. Neither Vignon nor anybody else suspected for a moment that Dax, colonel of the 181st Regiment of the line, of the crack Assolant Division, next on the list for a general’s stars and a promotion in the Legion of Honour, four times cited for bravery in Army Orders—no one suspected for a moment, so well did Dax conceal the fact, that he was in a state of fear which was rapidly turning into panic.
    This fear of his was, so far as he knew, an idiosyncrasy, one which grew with each step forward he was now taking, one which became more acute every time he had to perform the duty of leading his regiment into the trenches. Once the men were in the trenches, the crisis would evaporate. He quite realized that his fears were unreasonable, even groundless, to a certain extent, but that did not make it any easier for him to master his rising terror. All he could think of was the compact mass of living, human, vulnerable flesh, strung out for two kilometres or so behind him. All he could think of was