SEEN FROM ABOVE John's period of unconsciousness was brief.

The sweep of air from a gigantic shell, passing close, had taken his senses for a minute or two, but he leaped to his feet to find his motor cycle broken and puffing out its last breath, and himself among the dead and wounded in the wake of the army which was advancing rapidly.

The turmoil was so vast, and so much dust and burned gunpowder was floating about that he was not able to tell where the valiant Vaugirard with the remainder of his staff marched.

In front of him a regiment, cut up terribly, was advancing at a swift pace, and acting under the impulse of the moment he ran forward to join them.
When he overtook the regiment he saw that it had neither colonel, nor captains nor any other officers of high degree.

A little man, scarcely more than a youth, his head bare, his eyes snapping fire, one hand holding aloft a red cap on the point of a sword, had taken command and was urging the soldiers on with every fierce shout that he knew.