“Mon Dieu, how will this all end?” they asked each other. Coco didn’t know, François didn’t know; but neither thought the war could possibly last more than a few months.

IV

Yet there was a terrible earnestness about it all that sobered them. There was something still more terribly earnest ahead! Every automobile that whizzed past them, coming in hot haste from the front, announced it. Every galloping supply wagon, every crouching motorcyclist in uniform16 flashing by told the same frantic story: “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! The Germans are almost here! France is in danger!”

On those first nights, when Coco’s turn came to stand on sentry duty by the lonely corner of a wood, his eyes strained into the darkness, listening for every sound, the sight of a bush waving in the wind often brought his gun to his shoulder with a quick, excited “Halte-là!”

For Coco, sensitive, earnest, and not a little fearful, was in a high nervous tension. Already the Germans were fighting in Belgium—the killing had commenced. From one of the villages they passed the boy wrote a brave little letter to his mother on a post card: “If anything should happen ... well, one knows one’s duty, and God will do the rest. Lovingly, Coco.”

On, on, through the hilly forests of 17Argonne they marched, making about twenty-five miles a day. And on that dusty march food was scarce. Poor Coco’s feet, despite the tallow in his socks, were too sore for him to chase chickens, but Françoi