At times shells would strike in
the villages of Breuil and Vauxbain, and houses would burst into
flames, the gale fanning the fire to great height and hiding the village
in smoke. Some three hundred yards ahead of us the shells of
German siege-guns were trying to destroy the road, which the
poplars clearly betrayed. But their practice was at fault, and the shells
fell only on either side. When they struck they burst with a roar,
casting up black fumes and digging a grave twenty yards in
circumference.
But the French soldiers disregarded them entirely. In the trenches
which the Germans had made and abandoned they hid from the wind
and slept peacefully. Others slept in the lee of the haystacks, their red
breeches and blue coats making wonderful splashes of color against
the yellow grain. For seven days these same men had been fighting
without pause, and battles bore them.
Late in the afternoon, all along the fifteen miles of battle, firing
ceased, for the Germans were falling back, and once more Soissons,
freed of them as fifteen hundred years ago she had freed herself of
the Romans, held out her arms to the Allies.
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