Somebody starts a song, for the regiment is marching at ease. A squad takes it up, and it spreads through the company--the company in rear has already started its own song, a different one. Interminably that song goes on, and the miles slip behind. At the end of every hour the column halts, and its men fall out for five minutes' rest--a good custom, this, for one can get rid of some of the dust, and often get a drink of water from a wayside spring--or Jean, who always gets enough money from home to satisfy the desires of his heart, has brought a bottle. It would be in the last degree injudicious to incur the accusation of _faire suisse_ on this first day of the march, and Jean has long since learned wisdom over such points of etiquette. Jean wants to keep the bottle till the next halt, but it is pointed out to him that the morning is already warm, and to carry a bottle for another hour when one might empty it--with assistance--and be saved the labour of transporting it further, is very bad judgment. Jean needs little persuasion--but it is time to fall in and resume the march: the bottle gets emptied while the column is marching, and Jean is voted _un brave garçon_--as undoubtedly he is, in other things beside this.
Shrouded in dust the column goes on. The grey-headed colonel is at the head, then comes the band, and then the men of the regiment follow, at ease, singing, smoking, chatting together. They pass through a village street in which is a simple monument to the men who fell in '70, and the colonel pulls his men up to attention while they pass through the street. Quietly, and with something ominous in the manner of their march, the men pass out to the open road again, where "at ease" is the order once more. But, when they march steadily at attention, these French infantrymen seem the embodiment of military strength and efficiency. The Army has taken them and made of them what it meant to make, and, Breton lad or Paris gamin, they are stamped with the mark of the Army--they are soldiers of the Republic, marching items which, apart from their personal characteristics, mean each a rifle and a bayonet for France when the hour shall strike. Over successive horizons they go, stopping every hour for their five minutes; they grow heedless of the band at the head of the column, and scarcely know whether it is playing or no; one or two fall out, perhaps, for the first days of the march throw out from the ranks all the unfit; there is a doctor at hand to see to those who fall out, and the column swings on. Some time, after what seems to the men very many hours, the band strikes up definitely and with an indefinable new note--and the men know they are marching into camp. Food and sleep are not far ahead; the column stiffens at the call from the grey-haired colonel, and swings on to the camping-ground apparently as fresh as when the men passed out from the barrack gate. It is a part of their pride that they should come in well, should end their march like soldiers and men, not like weaklings.