The third great attempt of the Germans to break
through was in progress. The booming of the
guns came to us across rolling hills. There was
scarcely an entire pane of glass in the station.
The squat barrack-like temporary hospitals, filled
with the martyrs who had entered the turmoil, to
return shattered along the Sacred Way, sent forth
an air of suffering and misgiving. For the Ger-
mans at that time were in the habit of raiding
Bar-le-Duc with their air squadrons. The day
after my last visit, indeed, they dropped a shower
of bombs, killing and maiming more than thirty
civilians.
Beyond we left the main line, taking a tangent to the south to avoid the salient at St. Mihiel.
At the first station west of Nancy the controlleur told us we must alight.
“The train," he explained," does not stop in Nancy itself, because of the Boche bombardment.
We were greeted on the platform by a stout, hospitable man in the uniform of the Etat Major. He drove us into Nancy whose chief beauties, in spite of the bombardment, have remained intact. There was enough of ruin, however, for the most part in the vicinity of the station, which the Germans have been unable to hit directly. An apartment house in the middle of a block had recently
