"That's all right. I hope we'll be under the command of General Vaugirard. Do you know anything of him?"
"Not today, but he was alive yesterday. Take the glasses now, John, will you, and be my eyes as you have been before. One needs to watch the heavens all the time."
John took Lannes' powerful glasses, and objects invisible before leaped into view.
"I see two or three rivers, a dozen villages, and troops," he said. "The troops are to the west, and although they are this side of the Marne, I should judge that they are ours."
"Ours undoubtedly," said Lannes, glancing the way John's glasses pointed. "Not less than a hundred thousand of our men have crossed the Marne at that point, and more will soon be coming. It's a part of the great wedge thrust forward by our chief. But keep your eye on the air, John. What do you see there?"
"Nothing that's near. In the east I barely catch seven or eight black dots that I take to be German aeroplanes, but they seem to be content with hovering over their own lines. They don't approach."
"Doubtless they don't, because they're beginning to watch the air over the Marne as a danger zone. That pretty little signal of yours may have scared them."
Lannes laughed. It was evident that he was in a most excellent humor.
"All right, have your fun," said John, showing his own teeth in a smile. "If our flag didn't frighten away the German army it at least achieved what we wanted, that is, it brought you. The whole episode would be perfect if it were not for the fact that we lost sight of Weber."
"I tell you again not to worry about him. That man has shown uncommon ability to take care of himself."
"All right. I'll let him go for the present. Hello, here we are crossing the Marne again, and without getting our feet wet."
"We're a good half mile above it, but we'll cross it once more soon. I'm following the shortest road to the British army and that takes us over a loop of the river."
"Yes, here we are recrossing, and now we're coming to a region of chequered fields, green and brown and yellow. I always like these varied colors of the French country. It's a beautiful land down there, Philip."
"So it is, but see if it isn't defaced by sixty or seventy thousand sunburnt men in khaki, the khaki often stained with blood. The men, too, should be tired to death, but you can't tell that from this height."