down on a grassy bank, to rest and to watch the star shells breaking in the Champagne Sector. Just as we arose to begin our return journey the searchlight on the hill in the city threw its great shaft of light into the sky and played it back and forth across the heavens. Then a shot from the anti-aircraft gun beside it broke the quiet of the night. We could not locate the enemy aeroplane for it never rested in one place. We were on top of a little knoll and could see very clearly the flash from the gun in Ste. Menehould, followed by the report twelve seconds later and then immediately after this, the bright glare from the exploding shrapnel a mile above us. They fired only a few shots, however, for they were unable to locate the plane on account of its great height. As we walked home the nightingales were singing. They make one forget about the war and think of France three years ago, when men instead of women were plowing in the fields, when Dombasle and Esnes and St. Thomas were happy villages, not dull piles of stone. The poilu too, dreams of those days and hopes and prays for the time when he can return to his family and again resume his normal life.
