Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/102

84 France, we thought, where it's happened for four years, and flames now, waiting for us!

That was the reason for the nearly motionless silence along the decks, for the eyes fixed on each detail which seemed a little sacred.

The outlines of trees and houses traced themselves be- fore us. We had left America just struggling from the sober cloak of winter. Spring had done all it would for France. The coast appeared abnormally green and gay.

Aeroplanes whirred overhead. A dirigible, catching the sun like a placid planet, came to meet us, swung about, and escorted us in. The white and brown cliff's closed around us, like a welcoming embrace from the land. We felt ourselves drawn to a smiling serenity, a drowsy and remote content. Yet all the time we know it was nature's masquerade. It changed nothing for us. We were in France, which for nearly four years had submitted to the scarlet and voluble shock of a perpetual disaster.