Fighting France From Dunkerque to Belport by Edith Wharton

My trip to the east began by a dash toward the north. Near Rheims is a little town -- hardly more than a village, but in English we have no intermediate terms such as "bourg" and "petit bourg" -- where one of the new Red Cross sanitary motor units was to be seen "in action. " The inspection over, we climbed to a vineyard above the town and looked down at a river valley traversed by a double line of trees. The first line marked the canal, which is held by the French, who have gun-boats on it. Behind this ran the high-road, with the first-line French trenches, and just above, on the opposite slope, were the German lines. The soil being chalky, the German positions were clearly marked by two parallel white scorings across the brown hill-front; and while we watched we heard desultory firing, and saw, here and there along the ridge, the smoke-puff of an exploding shell.

It was incredibly strange to stand there, among the vines humming with summer insects, and to look out over a peaceful country heavy with the coming vintage, knowing that the trees at our feet hid a line of gun-boats that were crashing death into those two white scorings on the hill.