In the morning we made slow progress in our automobile. Roads and fields were greenish grey with troops--a vast horde of them possessed the valleys; they enveloped the hills like fog-banks turning the whole world grey--infantry, artillery, cuirassiers, Uhlans, hussars--all mist colour from helmet to heel--and so are their waggons and guns and caissons and traction-engines and motor-cycles and armoured cars and aeroplanes.
The latter are magnificent in an artistic sense--perfect replicas of giant pigeon-hawks, circling, planing, sheering the air or sailing high, majestic as a very lammergeier, fierce, relentless, terrible.
My efficient companion who is reading this letter over my shoulder as I write it, and who has condescended to permit a ghost of a smile to mitigate, now and then, the youthful seriousness of his countenance, is not likely to object when I say to you that what I have seen of the German army on the march is astoundingly impressive.
(He smiles again very boyishly and says he doesn't object.)
Order, precision, a knowledge of the country absolutely unhesitating marks its progress. There is much singing in the infantry ranks. The men march well, their physique is fine, the cavalry are superbly mounted, the guns--(He shakes his head, so never mind the guns.)
Their regimental bands are wonderful. It is a sheer delight to listen to them. They play everything from "Polen Blut" and "Sari," to Sousa, "Tannhäuser," and "A Hot Time," but I haven't yet heard "Tipperary." (He seems puzzled at this, but does not object.) I expect shortly to hear a band playing it. (I have to explain to my efficient companion that "Tipperary" is a tune which ought to take Berlin and Vienna _by storm_ when they hear it. It takes Berlin and Vienna to really appreciate good music. He agrees with me.)
Yesterday we passed a convoy of prisoners, some were kilted. I was not permitted to speak to them--but, Oh, those wistful eyes of Scottish blue! I guess they understood, for they got all the tobacco I had left. (My companion is doubtful about this, but finally shrugs his shoulders.)
There is an awesome noise going on beyond us in--well in a certain direction. I think that all the artillery ever made is producing it. There's practically no smoke visible against the clear blue August sky--nothing to see at all except the feathery cotton fleece of shrapnel appearing, expanding, vanishing over a hill on the horizon, and two aeroplanes circling high like a pair of mated hawks.