CHAPTER XVI
THE BASE
WHATEVER the custom of the Germans, tea wasn't neglected here. After we had visited the other guns we walked, still tingling from the noise, to a hut in which rows of young men sat at a table between lines of cots, laughing and chattering amid a rattle of cups and spoons. A heavily banked bomb-proof was convenient to the entrance.
“And it wouldn't take long to get there," the colonel said grimly.
Two men and a woman stood in the yard of the farm.
“They're not quite so near," I said. "It's like living on a powder magazine."
The colonel nodded.
They're probably doomed. Sooner or later the Huns will get them. What can we do? We can't move them. Truly the French are a wonderful people."
That is the most persistent phrase of this war. The woman waved her hand gaily, wishing us a safe walk, as we started back across the field.
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