It had all been labor in vain, for the town capitulated after the outposts fell; but it must have been very great labor.

Any number of fine elm trees had been felled and their boughs, stripped now of leaves, stuck up like bare bones.

There were holes in the metaled road where misaimed shells had descended, and in any one of these holes you might have buried a horse.
A little gray church stood off by itself upon the plain.

It had been homely enough to start with.

Now with its steeple shorn away and one of its two belfry windows obliterated by a straying shot it had a rakish, cock-eyed look to it.
Just beyond where the church was our chauffeur halted the car in obedience to an order from the staff officer who had been detailed by Major von Abercron, commandant of Maubeuge, to accompany us on this particular excursion.