We came to the edge of the barb-wire, and what looked like part of a tree trunk turned into a man-sized bird's nest. The sentry in the nest had his back to us, and was peering intently down through the branches of the tree tops. He remained so long motionless that I thought he was not aware of our approach. But he had heard us. Only it was no part of his orders to make abrupt movements. With infinite caution, with the most considerate slowness, he turned, scowled, and waved us back. It was the care with which he made even so slight a gesture that persuaded me the Germans were as close as the colonel had said. My curiosity concerning them was satisfied. The sentry did not need to wave me back. I was already on my way.
At the post of observation I saw a dog-kennel.
"There are watchdogs on our side, also?" I said.
"The idea is that their hearing is better than that of the men, and in case of night attacks they will warn us. But during the day they get so excited barking at the _boche_ dogs that when darkness comes, and we need them, they are worn-out and fall asleep."
We continued through the forest, and wherever we went found men at work repairing the path and pushing the barb-wire and trenches nearer the enemy. In some places they worked with great caution as, hidden by the ferns, they dragged behind them the coils of wire; sometimes they were able to work openly, and the forest resounded with the blows of axes and the crash of a falling tree. But an axe in a forest does not suggest war, and the scene was still one of peace and beauty.
For miles the men had lined the path with borders of moss six inches wide, and with strips of bark had decorated the huts and shelters. Across the tiny ravines they had thrown what in seed catalogues are called "rustic" bridges. As we walked in single file between these carefully laid borders of moss and past the shelters that suggested only a gamekeeper's lodge, we might have been on a walking tour in the Alps. You expected at every turn to come upon a châlet like a Swiss clock, and a patient cow and a young woman in a velvet bodice who would offer you warm milk.
Instead, from overhead, there burst suddenly the barking of shrapnel, and through an opening in the tree-tops we saw a French biplane pursued by German shells. It was late in the afternoon, but the sun was still shining and, entirely out of her turn, the moon also was shining. In the blue sky she hung like a silver shield, and toward her, it seemed almost to her level, rose the biplane.