Page:Women Wanted.djvu/56

 platform is densely packed with French soldiers in the sky blue uniforms that have been so carefully matched with the horizon color of France. A debonnair French captain has been appointed by the French government to receive us. He is in full uniform, splendid scarlet trousers and gold braided coat, with his left breast ornamented with the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille de Honneur. After the formal salutations are over, however, his orderly envelops all of the captain's splendour too in the long sky blue coat for camouflage against the Germans. And we start for Rheims in the convoy of three luxuriously appointed "camoens," the limousines placed at our disposal by the government. They, too, are painted blue grey to blend with the landscape, and each flies a little French flag.

"Ou allez vous, Monsieur?" the sentry at the bridge of Epernay challenges our chauffeur. And the French captain himself leans from the window to answer, "À Rheims. Une mission de la gouvernement." So we pass sentry after sentry. It is 15 miles to Rheims. This is the Department of the Marne, with the vineyards that have produced the most famous wines of the world. The "smiling countryside of France," the poets have termed it. In September, 1914, history changed it to the grim field of carnage running red with the blood of civilisation that here made its stand against the onrushing Huns. Right across that valley see the battlefield of the Marne. Along this road the German army passed. From this little village that we are