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ON THE WAY TO THE FIFTH ARMY 59
streams at the bottom or woods are considered by the Ger-
mans to present greater obstacles to attack than the more
open ground met with in central and southern France.
Our road takes us through Longuyon and follows its main
street. It has a desolate appearance. Over a long stretch
there is not a single house standing. Everything is in ruins,
the road is lined with piles of wreckage, swept aside so as not
to impede the traffic, and naked walls with yawning window
gaps meet the eye. The bridges are guarded by German
sentries ; otherwise no human beings are to be seen. How
miserable the inhabitants must feel when they return and
vainly look for their homes and belongings !
We emerge into the open country where armies have been
marching through. Small blackened holes in the earth are
all that is left of the bivouac fires and cooking-pits. Here the
transport columns have rested for the night. The village of
Noers is burned and its church steeple has been shot away,
the music of a maxim gun having been traced to the spot
from which at other times the church bells call to evensong.
No dead bodies are seen, no fallen soldiers, no carcases of
horses. All remains of men and horses have for sanitary
reasons been interred by the Germans. They would other-
wise poison the air and give rise to epidemics. Still there is
quite enough left to recall the ravages of war. Here we have
a row of straw shelters backed on to a hedge, there some up-
turned carts with which the French had endeavoured to bar
the way. This is the most magnificent high road imaginable,
lined everjrwhere with avenues of trees. Along the road-
side runs a telegraph line, which had been destroyed by the
defenders but repaired by the German Telegraph Corps, not
by the field telegraph troops, whose sphere of activity is nearer
the front.
We have now reached Marville, and the road becomes
livelier. At one side a supply column has turned off into a
field and lined up its wagons, which with their canvas awnings
give the impression of an open-air barrack-yard. The column
is resting, and the men have commenced cooking. Round
the encampment sentries are posted. Precautions must be
taken. Yesterday in this very neighbourhood nineteen French
civihans, who had fired on an ammunition column, were
arrested. They were to be tried by court-martial and shot if
the offence could be brought home to them. A little further
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