face that it was good news, and I felt my heart give a lurch when I answered him.
"Tell me the best."
"Germany is sending plenipotentiaries, under a white flag, to Foch. They know it is unconditional surrender. . . . And the Kaiser has abdicated."
I drew a deep breath. Something seemed to lift from my soul. The sky seemed to become brighter, as though a shadow had passed from the face of the sun.
"Then it's the end?. . . The last battle has been fought!"
Brand was staring at a column of troops—all young fellows of the 4th Division. His eyes were glistening, with moisture in them.
"Reprieved!" he said. "The last of our youth is saved!"
He turned to me suddenly, and spoke in the deepest melancholy.
"You and I ought to be dead. So many kids were killed. We've no right to be alive."
"Perhaps there is other work to do," I answered him, weakly, because I had the same thought.
He did not seem sure of that.
"I wonder!. . . If we could help to save the next generation"
In the Place d'Armes of Valenciennes there was a great crowd, and many of our Generals and Staff officers on the steps and below the steps of the Hôtel de Ville. Brand and I caught a glimpse of Colonel Lavington, looking very gallant and debonair, as usual. Beside him was Charles Fortune, with his air of a Staff-officer dreadfully overworked in the arrangement of victory, modest in spite of his great achievements, deprecating any public homage that might be paid him. This careful mask of his was slightly disarranged for a moment when he
