LIVING BAYONETS

A Record of The Last Push

By Coningsby Dawson

London: John Lane, The Bodley Head New York:

1919

"Our spirits are living bayonets. The ideals which we carry in our hearts are more deadly to the enemy than any man-made weapons.”

CONTENTS

[ FOREWORD ]

[ LIVING BAYONETS ]

[ GERMANY PLEADS FOR PEACE ]

FOREWORD

THESE selections from collected letters of Coningsby Dawson have been edited by his sister, Muriel Dawson, and are published in response to hundreds of requests. Readers of his first volume of correspondence from the Front, issued under the title of “Khaki Courage,” have written from all over the country asking that a further series be given them. The generous appreciation and personal interest expressed by these readers have induced Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson's family to publish these letters. They take up his story at the point where “Khaki Courage” laid it down, at the time when America entered the war.

LIVING BAYONETS

A RECORD OF THE LAST PUSH

I

France April 14, 1917

THE other night at twelve your letters came to me just as I was climbing into my bunk, so recently tenanted by a Hun. I immediately lit another candle, stuck it on the wall in a manner peculiar to myself, and started on a feast of genuine home gossip.

What a difference it must make to you to know that the United States are at last confessedly our Ally. Their financial and industrial support will be invaluable to us and will make a difference at once. And the moral advantage of having them on our side is the greatest wound to the spirit of Germany that she has received since the war started. It will be real fun to be able to come back to New York in khaki, won't it?—instead of slinking in as a civilian. Besides, if I get wounded, I'll be able to come home to visit you on leave now.

This big decision has made me almost gay ever since it happened. I have such a new affection for everything across the Atlantic—almost as if New York and the Hudson were just across the lawn from England, the nearest of near neighbours. I wish with all my heart that I could drop in on you for a day and just sit down on the sunny verandah and talk and talk. There's so much I want to hear and so much I want to understand in the changed attitude of America. I'm sure everyone must be much more happy now that the cloud of reproach has lifted and the brightness of heroism is in the air. It shines in my imagination like the clear blueness above the white towers of New York. There's one thing certain; now that the President has made up his mind, the country will go as baldheadedly for war as it has for everything else it ever set out to attain. The real momentousness of this happening hasn't been appreciated by the fighting men out here yet. With a sublime arrogance they feel themselves quite capable of licking Germany without the assistance of anyone.

II

France April 17, 1917

Last night I was out on a working party—a moonlight night with sleet falling, and did not get back till past two. The first thing my flash-light fell on as I entered my dug-out was a pile of letters from home. At past 3 a.m. I was still reading them, when H. and B. woke up and asked if there was anything for them. There was. So there we were all lying in our bunks and reading our love-letters till nearly 4 a.m.

Yesterday I had a very exciting time. I was doing some reconnoitring along the front when a bullet whizzed by and almost scorched the ear of my sergeant. We hopped into a trench about two feet full of water. But whenever we showed ourselves the sniping started up again. At last we got tired of wading, so climbed out and made a dash across the open. None of us was caught, but by pure bad luck another sergeant of mine, who was waiting quite 300 yards away, got it in the back. He was a big, heavy chap, and we had quite a slippery time carrying him out on a stretcher to the dressing-station. That's the second N.C.O. who's been hit with me in the last ten days. The other chap got it in his side.

Either of these wounds would have been nice to get for anyone who wanted a rest. But I don't want to get out yet; all the really sporting part of this war will be this summer. We are praying that we may come into action at the gallop, “Halt, action front!” bang off our rounds and follow up again.

For some reason, to-day my memory has been full of pictures of that wonderful leave we had together in London. Things have come back that I'd forgotten—visits to theatres, to restaurants, rides in taxis, so many things—all the time there's that extraordinary atmosphere of intense love. I suppose I must have spent the night dreaming of you. Living in the daylight hours in this deep dug-out makes spring seem like winter; I expect that helps me to remember. How I wish I could have those ten days again. Perhaps our next will be in New York, when I come back in khaki for an odd week. The thought of such a happening in the future and the recollection of the meeting that is past are like coming to a fire out of a dark, cold night. This war is so monstrously impersonal; the attachments one forms with those among whom he lives are so few, that the passionately personal affections of the old days shine out like beacon fires. It will be wonderful when the war ends and one can sit still in a great hush.

Yesterday I had a day off for a bath behind the lines—I hadn't tubbed for well over a month and hadn't been back of the guns; also I had slept in my clothes—so you may judge that warm water and soap were a necessity. Afterwards I had great fun shopping for the mess, but I didn't manage to buy much, as the country is all eaten up. All that is beautiful in the way of landscape lies ahead, so we're very anxious to capture it from the Hun. One looks out over his back country, so green and beautiful and untouched, and feels like an Old Testament spy having a peep at the Promised Land. Without doubt it will be ours in the ordained time. When I went out this morning it was to see a blue, blue sky, a battery pulling into action and behind it a desolated town. But the feature that caught my attention was the spring sky. I stared and stared at it and thought of when the war is ended. To-day I had to go to another town which is in process of being battered. On my way back I passed through a wood—most of the trees were levelled to the ground. In the wood I found a hawk wounded by shrapnel, and pressing close behind a fallen trunk. And I found my first spring flower—a daffodil—which I am enclosing to you. I've sent you many flowers, but none which carries with it more love than this little withered daffodil—my first token of spring—gathered from a fought-over woodland of France.

Since writing thus far it has been raining cats and dogs, and I've been catching the mud, which leaks through my roof, in a soup-plate. Little things like mud and rain don't damp our ardour, however; we press on and on to certain victory.

One of our officers came back from leave to-day—he'd spent his freedom in Devon, and was full of the beauty of the spring-time there. Happy Devon! War has changed the seasons in France. Winter started in October; it's the middle of April and winter has not yet ended. Oh, to wake up again with the splendid assurance of a summer day with nothing but beauty—such a peaceful day as we have so often spent at Kootenay. That wounded hawk, crouching among the daffodils, is a symbol—we're like that: beasts of prey for our country's sake, maimed in mind and spirit, and waiting till our wings grow strong again. And yet—who would be anywhere else but here so long as the war lasts? Oh, the fine clean courage of the men in the face of danger and their brave endurance in the presence of privation! It passes understanding. I saw a chap with a mortal wound the other day thinking nothing of himself—only of his pal, who was but slightly wounded. The most unendurable people act like heroes in the face of death. There's a fundamental nobility in all men which comes to the surface when life is most despairing.

III

France April 19, 1917

I sit in a hole in a recent battlefield. Over my head is some tattered canvas, upheld by Fritzie shovels. In a battered bucket wood splutters, and the rain it raineth every day. To make my appearance more gipsy-like I may add that my hands are cracked with the mud. When the war is ended I shall lie in bed for a month.

We've come through some very lively times of late, and I shall have plenty of local colour to impart to you when the war is ended. My mind is packed with vivid pictures which I cannot tell. This huge silence which rests between individuals is the most terrific thing about the war. You get the terror made concrete for you when you creep to your Observation Post and spy upon the Hun country. In the foreground is a long stretch of barbed wire, shell-holes and mud. Behind that a ruined town; then gradually, greenness growing more vivid as it recedes to the horizon. Nothing stirs. You may look through your telescope all day, but nothing stirs.

Yet you know that in every hole the hidden death lurks; should you for a moment forget and raise your head unwarily, you are reminded of your folly by the crack of a rifle. I've always made the mistake of believing the best of everyone—and, as a soldier, I've never been able to credit the fact that anyone of a big nation would count himself happy to get my scalp. The actual passes belief. I recall so vividly that story of the final war, written by a German, The Human Slaughter-house. The chap never realizes the awfulness of his job until for the first time he comes face to face with the young boy he's called upon to kill. We kill by hundreds from a distance, but the destroyed and the destroyers rarely have a hint of each other's identity. I came to a dug-out the other day in a battered trench. Even the water in the shell-holes was dyed by explosives to the colour of blood. Outside lay a German, face downwards in the mud—an old man with grizzled hair. I shoved my revolver round the mouth of the dug-out and called to anyone who was there to come out. A Cockney voice answered; then followed a scrambling; two huge feet came up through the dark; they belonged to a dead German; two of his comrades grinned cheerfully at me from behind the corpse and propelled it none too reverently into the mud. Behind the party I discovered my Cockney-adventurer—a machine-gunner who, having lost his company, made amends by capturing three Fritzes and killing two others with the aid of a pal with a shattered leg. I told him to bring his pal up. Under his directions the Fritzes trotted back into the hole and brought out the wounded fellow. They were extraordinarily meek-looking and quite surprisingly gentle; when I'd told them where the dressing-station was, they made a bandy-chair of their hands, placed our fellow's arms about their necks and staggered away through the barrage—or curtain of fire, as the papers like to call it—back to safety with their wounded enemy. And yet within the hour all these people had been chucking bombs at one another.

A few days ago I was detailed for a novel experience—to follow up the infantry attack across No Man's Land to the Hun Front line and as far as his support trenches. I called for volunteers to accompany me and had a splendid lot of chaps. My party got away with the adventure without a scratch—which was extraordinarily lucky. Moreover, we accomplished the particular job that we were called upon to do.

To-night I'm out from dusk to daylight poking through the darkness in a country where one dare not use a flash-light. Between two ruined towns I have to pass a battered Calvary.

The Christ upon His Cross is still untouched, though the shrine and surrounding trees are smashed to atoms. I think He means more to me like that—stripped of His gorgeousness—than ever. He seems so like ourselves in His lonely and unhallowed suffering. The road which leads to and from Him is symbolic—shell-torn, scattered with dead horses and men, while ahead the snarl of shrapnel darts across the sky and spends itself in little fleecy puffs. All this desolation will be re-created one day, the country will grow green and, in another country, greener than any upon earth, those dead men will walk and laugh—and in that other country the Christ will no longer hang alone and aloofly. I like to think of that—of the beauty in the future, if not in this, then in some other world. One grows tired, just like that image on the Cross. How little the body counts! War teaches us that.

IV

France April 22, 1917

I had a letter from each one of you the day before last, and they reached me within three weeks of being written—it made you all seem very near.

I am writing this to you from a mercifully deep dug-out, which was the home of Huns considerably less than a fortnight ago. I'm sure it was very obliging of them to think ahead and provide us with such safe hiding-places from their villainous shells. They have knocked the house down overhead. In the yard is a broken bird-cage—the owner must have set the captive free before he made good his own escape. Hanging at the head of my bunk is an iron crucifix and on the wall is a beautiful woman's portrait. One hardly thinks of his enemy as being human these days—he seems only an impersonal devastating force; but it was a man with affections who lately tenanted my dug-out.

In a recent attack I saw a curious happening. I was up with the infantry as liaison officer when one of our planes was shot down. The pilot made an effort to land behind our trenches, but his machine was unmanageable and he came down in Boche territory—or what had been Boche territory a quarter of an hour before. Through my glasses I saw the pilot and observer get out and start to creep cautiously back. We ourselves didn't know for certain where the Huns were—all we knew was that they were supposed to be withdrawing. When the airmen arrived at our battalion headquarters they were still scarcely convinced that our chaps were not Huns in khaki. When we gave them a meal of bully-beef they knew that wc were British. So very much I could tell you which is thrilling and heroic if only I were allowed.

Do you know, sometimes I marvel at my contented loneliness? It isn't like me. I ought to be homesick and—but I'm not. I'm too much consumed with the frenzy of an ideal to care for anything but to see the principle for which we fight established. What one man can do isn't much—only a Jesus can save the world singlehanded; the real satisfaction is in one's own soul, that softness and success had not made him deaf to the voice of duty when she called to him. For me this undertaking is as holy as a crusade; if it were not I could not endure the sights. As it is I keep quiet in my soul, feeling humbly glad that I am allowed to fulfil the dreams of my boyhood. I always wanted to do something to save the world, you remember. First I was going to be a missionary; then a reformer; then a preacher; then a poet. Instead of any of these I “struck luck” as a novelist—and I can see now how success was corroding to one's ideals. Success in America is so inevitably measured in terms of praise and money. I wanted to save the world; never in my wildest dreams did it occur to me that I should get my chance as a soldier. I remember when I was studying history at Oxford how I used to shudder at the descriptions of battles, especially mediaeval battles waged by mailed Titans. I don't know what change has taken place in me; this is a more damnable war in its possibilities for suffering than any of a bygone age; in comparison, those old wars seem chivalrous and humane. And yet because of the spiritual goal for which we fight I no longer shudder. Yes, that is the reason for the change. A man doesn't often get the chance in these commercial times to risk all that he holds most dear for humanity's sake. I think of the morning family prayers of childhood in the old panelled room in Highbury and the petitions you used to make for us—everything has shaped towards this great moment in our lives; the past was a straight road leading to this crisis. I don't forget the share you three contribute—the share of your brave loneliness and waiting. Your share is the greatest. God bless you.

Our major was twice wounded in the recent offensives and has now left us for a higher position. I was terribly sorry to lose him.

V

France April 30,1917

The mud has gone. Spring is here and the sun shines all the time. Oh, a most enjoyable war, I do assure you. When I wakened this morning I wandered up the thirty stairs from my dug-out into the former garden, which is now a scene of the utmost desolation. A row was going on as though the Celestial housemaid had lost her temper and given notice, and was tumbling all the plates from the pantry through the clouds. Above the clatter I heard a sound which was almost alarming: the clear, brave note of a thrush, piping, piping, piping. He didn't seem to care a rap how often the guns blew their noses or how often the Hun shrapnel clashed like cymbals overhead; he had his song to sing in the sunshine, and was determined to sing it, no matter that the song might go unheard. So there I stood and listened to him among the ruins, as one might listen to a faithful priest in a fallen church. I re-created in imagination the people who had lived here for generations, their tragedies, kindnesses, love-affairs. It must have been a beautiful place once, for everywhere there are stumps of fruit-trees, hedges of box trodden almost underground, circular patches which were flower-beds. I can picture the exiles' joy when they hear that their village has been recaptured. Presently they'll come back, these old women and men—for their sons are fighting—and they'll look in vain for even the landmarks of the little house which once sheltered their affections. The thrush in the tree is all that the Huns have left of past history. We British lose our men in the fight, but the sacrifice of the French is immeasurable, for when their sons are dead they have no quiet place of recollections. They can't say, “Do you remember how he walked here two years back?” or “These hollyhocks he planted,” or “How he waved us goodbye as we watched him from the gate!” The same cyclone of passion which has taken their sons' fives, has robbed them of everything tangible which would remind them of him.

As regards the U.S.A. joining with us, I have spoken with several Huns. They one and all seem very dejected about it, and seem to consider the loss of America's friendship one of the greatest blows of the war.

VI

France May 10, 1917

It's just back at the guns from a two days' rest at the wagon-fines. It's the first time I've been back since March. I rose early on a blazing morning and started down to the point where I was to meet my horses. I say “rose early,” but as a matter of fact I had only had four hours' sleep in forty-eight, and hadn't had my clothes off for nearly three weeks. As I drew away, the low thunder that we make grew less and less, the indescribable smell of bursting explosives fainter; soon I realized that a lark was singing overhead; then another—then another. Brave little birds to come so near to danger to sing for us. At the edge of a wood I found my chestnut mare, Kitty, and my groom—the chap who used to work at the Silver King mine, which overlooks our ranch at Kootenay. That we should share that memory always forms a bond of kindness between us. We didn't stop long at the wagon-line, but soon started out to get farther back for lunch. I had it in the shack of an officer who was with me at Petewawa. Then off I went at a gallop for green trees and clean country. I hadn't gone far before I came to a God's Acre full of crowded little white crosses and newly turned earth. Our captain was with me, and he learnt that an old friend from one of our batteries was on the way down with a Union Jack spread over him. We went into the brown field where the men who have “gone west” lie so closely and snugly side by side, and came to a place where six shallow holes were dug like clay coffins. Presently, winding through the forest of crosses, the hard blue sky overhead, we saw the little band advancing, the stretcher carried high on the shoulders of four officers. The burden was set down and the flag lifted, showing the mummy-like form sewn up in the blanket in which the living man had slept. The chaplain began tremulously, “I am the Resurrection and the life; he who believeth in Me,” etc., and while he recited I watched the faces of the gunners drawn up at attention in the strong sunlight. To them, whatever else the ceremony meant, it at least meant this—a day away from the guns. Suddenly I discovered that the Lord's Prayer was being said. Then heads were again covered and the word of command was given. “Right turn. Quick march.” The stretcher was gathered up and the little crowd dispersed. I suppose there is a woman somewhere who would have given ten' years of life to have stood in my shoes beside that narrow grave. For myself I thought, “Well, the chap's got what we long for most out here—rest. He won't have to stand in the mud any more, when his feet are like stones and eyes like lead, watching and watching the rockets go up along the front. And he won't have to guide his guns in at night, or wonder what life will do to him when the war is ended. He longed for sleep and now he sleeps endlessly.” It didn't impress me as at all sad. He'd played his part like a man and was at last rewarded. But we—we were alive, and we hadn't had a bath for a month—so we jumped on our horses and trotted off to the nearest shower.

It was five in the afternoon when we again took to the highway. We wanted to sponge out our minds by looking at something beautiful, just as we had sponged down our bodies. We, I should explain, were myself and the captain of my battery. Soon we found ourselves among fields from which all the wrinkles of trenches and pit-marks of shell-holes had been smoothed out. There was a river winding between tall trees unblasted by the curtain of fire. Peasants were at work on their little patches—women and either very old men or boys. We came to a town as quiet and unspoiled as those we used to visit in pre-war days. In a courtyard we tethered our horses and then sat down to one of those incomparable French meals. It was splendid after canned stuff, and you couldn't hear the boom of a single gun. The peace of the place got hold of us—we didn't want to go back too hurriedly, and kept postponing and postponing. A blue and gold haze with a touch of silver shining through it was blurring all the sky, when we remounted. We travelled slowly, singing—thinking up the twilight songs of other times. My thoughts went back to Scotch holidays at Arran and Loch Katrine—the daringly late evenings of childhood. Reluctantly we came back and saw the frantic city of Very lights grow up, which indicate the Hun front. The air began to be shaken again by the prolonged agony of rushing shells and stamping guns. It was only after midnight, when we had reached our hut, that I remembered the need of sleep. But when I struck a match on entering, I found letters from each one of you awaiting—so lay late in bed reading them by candlelight for another hour. One snatches at small pleasures and magnifies them into intensity.

Your letters told me about Khaki Courage, and seeing “Colonel Newcome,” and about the Highlanders in New York. What a very much more homely place America must be to you now. I must say I am keen to see the book. It's not mine at all—it's you dear home people's—you called it out and you put it together.

Here I sit in the underground place which I have to call “home” at present. You go through all kinds of contortions to enter. Stephen Leacock could be very funny at my expense.

VII

France June 2, 1917

It is 11 a.m., and I'm sitting at the bottom of a dug-out waiting for the Hun to finish his morning hate before I go upstairs. He seems very angry, and has just caved in one of our walls.

Mother seemed most awfully sorry for me in her last letter. But you know I'm really having rather a good time, despite having a minimum amount of washing and having our mess kitchen blown in every few days. The only time that one gets melancholy is when nothing is doing. An attack or the preparations for an attack are real fun. Everybody is on his toes, and there's no time to think.

It's four hours later. Just as I had reached this point news came that some of our chaps were buried, so I had a little brisk spade-work, then a wriggling voyage through a hole, and then a lot of messy work pouring iodine into wounds and binding up. I'm afraid my hands are still rather like a murderer's. Incidentally our kitchen is entirely done for this time. We've got the wounded fellows on their way to Blighty, and are fairly confident that they're not going west this time.

I am so glad that the coming of America into the game has made so much difference to you. I wish I could come back for a fortnight and share the excitement with you. It's difficult to picture New York as a military pageant in khaki. Tell me all about the young fellows I know and what they are doing. I wonder how many are in the Field Artillery—which is about the most interesting part of the game.

You remember that Calvary I told you about. I saw it under another guise after writing. Something happened and, instead of the spring peace, it was a shamble with horses and men dying. In such cases one can't do anything—he has to go on about his own errand.

I'm so very dirty that I'll leave off now while there's a chance to have a wash. I'm awfully muddy, and my hair is just ready for growing potatoes—there's about a pound of the real estate of France in it.

VIII

France June 6,1917

You certainly are owed a whole lot of letters, but it is very difficult to find the time under present conditions—I didn't get my breakfast until 7.30 p.m. yesterday. And to-day I was up at 4 a.m., and didn't come back from up front till dusk. So you see I really have some excuse for being temporarily a bad correspondent. You don't need to be sorry for me, though, or anything like that, for I'm having quite a good time. After the mud this hard white sunlight is a godsend. Do you remember———

June 7.—Thus far I got when I was interrupted, and another day has gone by. I'm just back again from up front. I went there at dawn to do some reconnaissance work. By eight the heat was sweltering—just the way it was when we made our memorable trip down the Loire valley—only now there are no estaminets at which to drink Ciro Citron. The only inhabitants of the place where I am now are the mayor and his daughter, who returned the moment the town was captured. Rather fine of them. Yesterday a French soldier looked in (on special leave) to claim what was left of his cottage; just as much, I should imagine, as you could make into a road. And yet, despite the fallen houses, the fruit-trees are green and not so long ago were white with bloom and nodding.

I'm feeling extraordinarily lazy and comfortable. I've taken two hours over shaving and washing. My basin was the brass case of a big eight-inch naval shell which was formerly the property of the Hun. I wish I could send you one back. Two mornings ago I had a dive and swim in a shell-hole filled with rain-water, which gives you some idea of the sized crater a big shell can make. From henceforth, however, I shall have to eschew this pleasure, as I understand that the ground is so poisoned with corpses, etc., that the water is likely to bring on skin disease. I have that to a slight extent already. Most of us have—it comes from eating no vegetables and nothing but tinned stuff.

How interested you'd be if you could just go for a couple of hours' walk with me. Coming back to-day I marvelled that we had ever managed to make our advance; the Hun machine-gun emplacements were so strongly fortified and well chosen. It speaks volumes for the impetuosity of our infantry.

IX

France June 17, 1917

I believe it must be nearly a week since I wrote. The reason is that I'm down at the wagon-lines, supposed to be resting, which is when we work the hardest. First of all, we had a grand inspection of the Brigade, which kept one going from 5 a.m. to 10.30 p.m., cleaning harness. Then we had Brigade sports, which are not yet over, and which don't leave an officer with any leisure. The best time for letter-writing is when one is in action, since you sit in a dug-out for interminable hours with nothing much to keep you busy.

I'm looking forward very much to the receipt of Khaki Courage; it hasn't come yet. It will be like reading something absolutely beyond my knowledge.

It is now evening. This has been a mixed day. I've been orderly officer. This morning I heard Canon Scott preach—he was the father I wrote to you about whom I met going up front in the winter to look for the body of his son. He's a fine old chap, and fully believes that he's fated to leave his bones in France. This afternoon was spent in harness-cleaning and this evening in watching a Brigade display of boxing. A strange world! But you'll judge that we're having quite good times. Last night we had an open-air concert—“Silver Threads among the Gold,” “The Long, Long Trail,” etc. Trenches lay behind us and ahead of us—not so long ago Huns could have reached us with a revolver shot, where we were all sitting. Overhead, like rooks through the twilight, our fighting planes sailed home to bed. Far away on the horizon, observers in the Hun balloons must have been watching us. It was almost possible to forget that a war existed; almost, until' a reminder came with a roar and column of black smoke to a distant flank.

Monday.

This letter gets scribbled in pieces. I'm now waiting for the afternoon parade to fall in. The gramophone is strumming out a banjo song, and in my galvanized hut it's as hot as———. Most of the men strip off everything but their breeches and go about their horses dripping like stokers. The place isn't so unlike Petewawa in some respects, except that there is no water. You look for miles across a landscape of sage-green and chalk, with straight French roads running without a waver from sky-line to sky-line. There's nothing habitable in sight—only grey piles and splintered trees. But in spite of the wholesale destruction one finds beauty. You'd smile if you could see our camp—it looks like a collection of gipsy bivouacs made of lean-tos of wood with canvas and sand-bags for roofs. The rats are getting bold, and coming out of the trenches—rather a nuisance. It's strange to be here playing football on the very ground over which not so long ago I followed the infantry within half an hour of the commencement of the attack. Our wounded chaps were crawling back, trying to drag themselves out of the Hun barrage, which was ploughing up the ground all around, and the Huns were lying like piled-up wheatsacks in their battered front line. One learns to have a very short memory and to be glad of the present.

Within sight a little trench tramway runs just like the Welsh toy-railway of our childhood. It leads all the way to Blighty and New York and Kootenay. One can see the wounded coming out on it, and sometimes sees them with a little envy.

X

France June 23,1917

Last night Khaki Courage arrived. I found the Officers' Mess assembled round my mail—they'd guessed what was in the package. I had intended smuggling the book away, and did actually succeed in getting it into my trench-coat pocket. A free fight ensued and, since there were four against one, I was soon conquered. Then one of them, having taken possession of the little volume, danced about our tin tabernacle reading extracts. I had planned to ride into a neighbouring city for dinner that night, but sat reading till nearly twelve. I can't thank you all enough for your loving work. I think the proof of how well you have done it is, that my brother officers are quite uncynically keen about it. If they, who have shared the atmosphere which I have unconsciously set down in its pages, can read with eagerness and without ridicule, I think the book, as compiled by you, dear people, should stand the test.

Do you remember a description I gave you some months back of seeing Huns brought up from a captured dug-out? That's long enough ago now for me to be able to give you a few details. A fortnight before the show commenced it was planned that an officer from each battery with a party of volunteers should follow up the infantry attack and build a road through the Hun Front line over which our artillery should advance. The initial work was carried on at night, and the road was built right up to our own front-line. On the morning of the attack I took my volunteers forward and hid with the rest of the party in one of our support trenches. We judged that we should escape the Hun barrage there, and should have advanced before his retaliation on our back country commenced. Soon after midnight, on a cold morning when the sleet was falling, we set out. The sky was faintly tinged with a grey dawn when our offensive opened. Suddenly the intense and almost spiritual quiet was changed into frantic chaos. The sky was vividly lit with every kind of ingeniously contrived destruction. In addition to his other shells, the Hun flung back gas and liquid fire. It looked as though no infantry could live in it. Within an hour of the offensive starting, each officer crept out of his trench and went forward to reconnoitre the ground, taking with him one N.C.O. and a runner. My runner carried with him a lot of stakes with white rags attached for marking out our route. We wound our way carefully through the shells until we reached our own Front line. Here the Hun barrage was falling briskly, and gas-shells were coming over to beat the band. The bursting of explosives was for all the world like corn popping in a pan. We ran across what had been No Man's Land and entered the Hun wire. My job was to build from here to his support-trenches. His frontline trench was piled high with dead. The whole spectacle was unreal as something that had been staged; the corpses looked like wax-works. One didn't have time to observe much, for flames seemed to be going off beneath one's feet almost every second, and it seemed marvellous that we contrived to live where there was so much death. As we went farther back we began to find our own khaki-clad dead. I don't think the Huns had got them; it was our own barrage, which they had followed too quickly in the eagerness of the attack. Then we came to where the liquid fire had descended, for the poor fellows had thrown themselves into the pools in the shell-holes and only the faces and arms were sticking out. Then I recognised the support-trench, which was the end of my journey, and planted my Union Jack as a signal for the other officers who were to build ahead of me. With my runner and N.C.O. I started to reconnoitre my road back, planting my stakes to mark the route. When I was again at what had been our Front line, I sent my runner back to guide in my volunteers. What a day it was! For a good part of the time the men had to dig, wearing their gas-helmets. You never saw such a mess—sleet driving in our faces, the ground hissing and boiling as shells descended, dead men everywhere, the wounded crawling desperately, dragging themselves to safety. I saw sights of pity and bravery that it is best not to mention, and all the time my brave chaps dug on, making the road for the guns. Soon through the smoke grey-clad figures came in tottering droves, scorched, battered, absolutely stunned. They looked more like beasts in their pathetic dumbness. One hardly recognized them as enemies. All day we worked, not stopping to eat, and by the evening we saw the first of our guns advancing. It's a great game, this war, and searches the soul out. That night I slept in the mud, clothes and all, the dreamless sleep of the dog-tired.

Note.—Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson was wounded in the right arm at Vimy on 26th June. He was evacuated with a serious case of gas-gangrene, and after being in, first, a Casualty Clearing Hospital and then a Base Hospital, was sent back to England on 8th July, where he was in a hospital at Wandsworth, London, till the end of August. His arm was in such a serious condition that at first it was thought necessary to amputate it. Fortunately after days of ceaseless care this was avoided.

XI

Hospital

London July 8, 1917

A fortnight ago to-day I got wounded. The place was stitched up and didn't look bad enough to go out with. Three days later there was an attack and I was to be observer. My arm got poisoned while I was on the job, and when I came back I was sent out. Blood-poisoning started, and they had to operate three times; for a little while there was a talk of amputation. But you're not to worry at all about me now, for I'm getting on splendidly and there's no cause for anxiety. They tell me it will take about two months before I get the full use of my arm back. Reggie was in London on leave and got his leave extended—I missed him by an hour. J. L. was round to see me this morning and is cabling to you. I don't think you ought to cross while the risk is so great and there's a difficulty in obtaining passports—though you know how I'd love to have you.

I've missed all my letters for the past fortnight. Please excuse me, for my arm gets very tired, and I'm not supposed to use it.

XII

London July 25, 1917

I'm going on all right, but can't use my arm much for writing just at present, so you won't mind short letters, will you? I got the first written by you since I was hurt, yesterday. I am so glad that America is so patriotic.

Yesterday, to my great surprise, I was called up by the High Commissioner of Canada, and on going to see him found he wanted me to start at once on preparing an important government statement. Since I'm forbidden to use my arm for writing, I'm to have a stenographer and dictate my stuff after doing the interviewing. This job is only temporary. And I think it is possible after I have finished it, if they refuse to allow me to return to the Front at once, that I may get a leave to America. I wouldn't want to get a long one, as I am so anxious to get back to France.

Don't worry at all about me. I feel quite well now, and go about with my arm in a sling and am allowed out of hospital to do this work all day. As soon as my ann grows stronger I'll write you a good long letter, but while it is as it is at present I have to restrict myself to bare essentials.

Oh, did I tell you? I wouldn't have missed coming through London on a stretcher for pounds. The flower-girls climbed into the ambulance and showered us with roses. All the way as we passed people waved and shouted. It was a kind of royal procession, and, like a baby, I cried.

XIII

London August 3,1917

I've just come back to my office in Oxford Circus from lunching at the Rendezvous. Next to my table during lunch were two typical Wardour Street dealers, rubbing their hands and chortling over a cheap buy.

I wonder how long this different way of life is going to last. Someone will snap his fingers and heigh-ho, presto! I shall be back in France. This little taste of the old life gives me a very vivid idea of the sheer glee with which I shall greet the end of the war. How jolly comfortable it will be to be your own master—not that one ever is his own master while there are other people to live for. But I mean, what an extraordinary miracle it will seem to be allowed to reckon one's life in years and not in weeks—to be able to look forward and plan and build. And yet—this is a confession—I can see myself getting up from my easy-chair and going out again quite gladly directly there is another war, if my help is needed. There was a time, long ago, when I used to regard a soldier with horror, and wondered how decent folk could admire him; the red of his coat always seemed to me the blood-red of murder. But it isn't the killing that counts—you find that out when you've become a soldier; it's the power to endure and walk bravely, and the opportunity for dying in a noble way. One doesn't hate his enemy if he's a good soldier, and doesn't even want to kill him from any personal motive—he may even regret killing him while in the act. I think it's just this attitude that makes our Canadians so terrible—they kill from principle and not from malice.

I'm seeing all my old friends again, lunching with one and dining with another, and have been to some matinees. But I can go to no evening performances, because I have to be in the hospital at 10 p.m.

I really am hoping to get a week in New York after this piece of work is done, after which back to France till the war is ended.

XIV

London August 30, 1917

I've just left hospital and am staying at this hotel. You keep saying in your letters that you never heard how I got my injury. I described it—but that letter must have gone astray. On 26th June I was wounded not by a shell, but by a piece of an iron chimney which was knocked down on to my right arm. I had it sewn up and for two days it was all right. The third I went up for an attack and it started to swell—by the time I came back I had gas-gangrene. The arm is better now and I'm on sick leave, though still working. They've made me an offer of a job here in London, but I should break my heart if I could not go back to the Front. But I think when I've finished here that I may get a special leave, with permission to call in at New York. Wouldn't that be grand?

I don't want to raise your hopes too high, but it seems extremely likely that I shall see you shortly. I was to-day before my medical board, and they gave me two months' home service. I have been promised that as soon as a new Canadian ruling on home leave is confirmed, my application for leave will go through.

If that happens, I shall cable you at once that I am coming. It doesn't seem at all possible or true that this can be so, and I'm making myself no promises till I'm really on the boat. It would be better that you should not, also. I'm taking a gamble and am going to order a new tunic for the occasion this afternoon.

It's a golden afternoon outside—the kind that turns the leaves red at Kootenay, with the tang of iced wine in the air. The sound of London is like the tumming of a thousand banjos. It's good to be alive, and very wonderful after all that has happened.

Note.—Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson arrived at Quebec on 26th September and came home on the following day. He was at home for a month. During that time he spoke in public on several occasions, and wrote the book which was brought out the following spring, entitled “The Glory of the Trenches.”

XIV

Somewhere on the Atlantic November 11, 1917

Here's the first letter since I left New York, coming to you. It's seven in the morning; I'm lying in my bunk, expecting any minute to be called to my bath.

So far it's been a pleasant voyage, with rolling seas and no submarines. There are scarcely a hundred passengers, of whom only four are ladies, in the first class. The men are Government officials, Army and Navy officers going on Cook's Tours, and Naval attachés. The American naval men are an especially fine type. We do all the usual things—play cards, deck-golf and sleep immoderately, but always at the wrong times.

I'm going back for the second time, and going back in the most placid frame of mind. I compare this trip with my first trip over as a soldier. I was awfully anxious then, and kept saying good-bye to things for the last time. Now I live day by day in a manner which is so take-it-for-granted as to be almost commonplace. I've locked my imagination away in some garret of my mind and the house of my thoughts is very quiet.

What bricks you all were in the parting—there wasn't any whining—you were a real soldier's family, and I felt proud of you. It was just a kind of “Good luck, old chap”—with all the rest of the speaking left to the eyes and hands. That's the way it should be in a world that's so full of surprises.

This trip has done a tremendous lot for me—I shall always know now that the trenches are not the whole of the horizon. Before, when I landed in France, it seemed as though a sound-and sight-proof curtain had dropped behind and everything I had known and loved was at an end. One collects a little bit of shrapnel and, heigho, presto! one's home again. On my second trip, the war won't seem such a world without end.

To-night I have to pack—that's wonderful, too. I'm wondering whether Reggie will be on the station. I shall send a telegram to warn him.

XVI

The Ritz Hotel, London November 11, 1917

This was the date at which I had to report back at Headquarters. Actually I reported back yesterday, because to-day is Sunday. I found that I had been detailed not for France, but for work under the High Commissioner. You know what such news means to me. I at once did my best to fight the order, but was told that it was a military order in which I had no choice. I start work to-morrow at Oxford Circus House, but shall put in an urgent request to go to France.-I shall at least try to get some limitations to the period of my stay in England. Even when I was in hospital I used to feel that the last stretcher-case out of the fighting was someone to be worshipped—he was nearer to the sacrifice than I. And now I'm not to go back for months, perhaps—I shall eat my heart out in England.

Reggie fell asleep and has just wakened. He was dreaming, he said, the best dream in the world. It was that he might land back in New York on 20th December and spend Christmas with you—then go up to Kootenay to get a glimpse of his little green home among the snow and apple trees and—— “And then what?”

I asked. He made a wry face. “Go back to hunting submarines,” he said quickly. Go back! We all want to go back. Why? Because it's so easy to find reasons for not going back probably. I shall raise heaven and earth to be sent back—and you'll be glad of it.

There's something that I shouldn't tell you were I going back to-morrow. Last week I met one of my gunners on leave. He was standing on the island in Piccadilly Circus. I learnt from him that every officer who was with me at the battery when I was wounded has since been wiped out. Even some who joined since have been done for. Three have been killed, the rest wounded, gassed, and the major has gone out with concussion. Among the killed is poor S., the one who was my best friend in France, You remember he had a young wife, and his first baby was born in February. He used to carry the list of all the people I wanted written to if I were killed, and I had promised to do the same for him. In addition to the officers, many of the men whom I admired have “gone west.” All this was told me casually in the heart of London's pleasure, with the taxis and buses streaming by.

A few days ago a pitiful derelict of the streets crossed my path. I'd been dining out in the West End with L. and P. and was on my way back, when a girl stopped me. She stopped me for the usual reason, and I suppose I refused her rudely. The next thing I knew she was crying. She said she had been walking for twelve hours, and was cold and tired, and ready to fall from weariness. It was very late, and I scarcely knew where to take her, but we found a little French restaurant open in Gerrard Street. On coming into the light, I discovered that she had a little toy dog under her arm, just as tired of life as herself. It was significant that she attended to the dog's before her own needs. We had to tempt it with milk before it would eat—then she set to work herself ravenously. I learnt her story by bits. She was a discharged munition worker, had strained herself lifting shells, and hadn't the brains or strength for anything but the streets. When she left the restaurant the lap-dog was again tucked beneath her arm. It was nearly midnight when she disappeared in the raw chilliness of the scant electric light. People die worse deaths than on battle-fields.

Wednesday.—I've been working for the last three days at the Minister's, and still have no inkling of what is to happen to me. My major walked in to-day; he wants me to wait till his sick-leave is over, after which we can return together. He'll put in a strong personal request for me to be allowed to return. He got concussion of the brain eight weeks ago through a shell bursting in his dug-out. S. was wounded at the same time, but didn't go out till next day. He had got one hundred yards from the battery when he and his batman were killed instantly by the same shell.

Reggie wasn't in town when I arrived. He didn't meet me till Friday. What with playing with him and working here I don't get much time for writing. But you'll hear from me again quite soon.

XVII

The Ritz, London November 15, 1917

This hanging round London seems a very poor way to help win a war. I couldn't stand very much of it, however invaluable they pretended I was, when my pals are dying out there. Poor old S.! He's in my thoughts every hour of the day. He was always getting new photos of his little daughter. He longed for a Blighty that he might see her again. He was wounded, but stopped on duty for two days. At last, only one hundred yards down the trench on his way to the dressing-station a shell caught him. He was dead in an instant. Before the Vimy show two of our chaps in the mess had peculiar dreams: one saw D.'. grave and the other S.'.. Both S. and D. are dead. The effect that all this has on me is not what might be expected—makes me the more anxious to get back. I hate to think that others are going sleepless and cold and are in danger, and that I am not there. When the memory comes at meal-times I feel like leaving the table.

It was ripping to hear from you last night. Your letter greeted me as I returned from the theatre. We'd been out with my major. At the theatre we picked up with a plucky chap, named K., who belonged to the same battery as B., to whom, you remember, I was carrying a present from some girl in New York. The present which she was so keen should reach him by Christmas turned out to be a neck-tie which she had knitted for him. On asking K., I found out that B. was killed on October 31st. It's the same story all the time so far as the 18-pounders are concerned.

When Reggie leaves me I'm going to start on another book, Out to Win, which is to be an interpretation for England of the new spirit which is animating America, and a plea for a closer sense of kinship between my two nations.

Don't worry about me, you'll get a cabled warning before I go to France. My major expects to go back in a month or two, and we've arranged to return together if possible. But you needn't get worried—I'm afraid I shall probably spend Christmas in London.

XVIII

The Ritz, London November 17, 1917

Your minds can be at rest as regards my safety for a few weeks at least. I've been collared for fair, but I think I'll manage to get free again presently. I suppose you'll say that I'm a donkey to want so much to get back to the Front; perhaps I am—the war will last quite long enough for every man in khaki to get very much more of it than he can comfortably stomach. The proper soldierly attitude is to take every respite as it turns up and be grateful for it. But then I'm not a professional soldier. I think in saying that I've laid my finger on the entire reason for the splendour of our troops—that they're not professional soldiers, but civilian idealists. Your professional soldier isn't particularly keen on death—his game is to live that he may fight another day. Our game is to fight and fight and fight so long as we have an ounce of strength left. My major and myself are all that are left of the officers in my battery. A great many of our best men are gone. They need us back to help them out.

Here's a story of stories—one which answers all the questions one hears asked as to whether the Army doesn't lower a man's morals and turn saints into blackguards.

When we were on the Somme, a batch of very worthless-appearing remounts arrived at our wagon-lines direct from England. When they were paraded before us, they made the rottenest impression—they looked like molly-coddles whom the Army had cowed. Among them was a particularly inoffensive-looking young man who had been a dental student, whom, if the Huns could have seen him as a sample of the kind of reinforcements we were getting, they would certainly have taken new courage to win the war. All the officers growled and prayed God for a consignment of the old rough-and-tumble knockabout chaps who came out of gaols, from under freight-trains, and from lumber-camps to die like gentlemen—the only gentlemanly thing some of them ever did, I expect—with the Canadian First Contingent.

A few weeks later we sent back to the wagonlines for a servant to be sent up to the guns, two of our batmen having been killed and a third having been returned to duty. The wagon-line officer sent us up this fellow with the following note: “I'm sending you X. He's the most useless chap I have—not bad, but a ninny. I hope he'll suit you.” He didn't. He could never carry out an order correctly, and seemed scared stiff: by any N.C.O. or officer. We got rid of him promptly. When he returned to the wagon-lines, he was put on to all the fatigues and dirty jobs.

The first time we got any hint that the chap had guts was when we were out at rest at Christmas. He'd been shifted from one section to another, because no one wanted him.. Each new Number One as he received him put him on to his worst horses, so as to get rid of him the more quickly. The chap was grooming a very ticklish mare, when she up with her hind-legs and caught him in the chest, throwing him about twenty yards into the mud. He lay stunned for a full minute; we thought he was done. Then, in a dazed kind of way, he got upon his feet. He was told he could fall out, but he insisted upon finishing the grooming of his horse. When the stable parade was dismissed, much against his will he was sent to be inspected by the Brigade doctor.

The doctor looked him over and said, “I ought to send you out to a hospital, but I'll see how you are to-morrow. You must go back to your billets and keep quiet. The kick has chipped the point of your breast-bone.”

“It didn't,” said Driver X., “and I'm not going to lie down.”

The doctor, who is very small, looked as much like the Last Judgment as his size would allow. “You'll do what you're told,” he said sharply. “You'll find yourself up for office if you speak to me like that. If I told you that both your legs were broken, they would be broken. You don't know very much about the Army, my lad.”

“But my breast-bone isn't chipped,” he insisted. Contrary to orders he was out on the afternoon parade and was up to morning stables next day at six o'clock. When strafed for his disobedience, he looked mild and inoffensive and obstinate. He refused to be considered, and won out. You can punish chaps for things like that; but you don't.

The next thing we noticed about him was that he was learning to swear. Then he began to look rough, so that no one would have guessed that he came from a social grade different from that of the other men. And this was the stage he had arrived at when I got wounded last summer and left the battery. The story of his further progress was completed for me this week when I met my major in town.

“Who's the latest hero, do you think?", he questioned. “You'd never guess—the dental student. He did one of the most splendid bits of work that was ever done by an Artillery driver.”

Here's what he did. He was sent along a heavily shelled road at nightfall to collect material from blown-in dug-outs for building our new battery position. He was wheel-driver on a G.S. wagon which had three teams hooked into it. There was a party of men with him to scout up the material and an N.C.O. in charge. As they were halted, backed up against an embankment, a shell landed plumb into the wagon, crippling it badly, wounding all the horses and every man except the ex-dental student. The teams bolted, and it was mainly due to the efforts of the wheel-driver that the stampede was checked. He must have used quite a lot of language which really polite people would not have approved. He then bound up all the wounds of his comrades—there was no one to help him—and took them back to the field dressing-station two at a time, mounted on two of the least wounded horses. When he had carried them all to safety, he removed their puttees and went back alone along the shelled road to the wounded horses and used the puttees to stop their flow of blood. He managed to get the wagon clear, so that it could be pulled. He tied four of the horses on behind; hooked in the two that were strongest, and brought the lot back to the wagonlines single-handed.

And here's the end of the story. The O.C. put in a strong recommendation that he be decorated for his humanity and courage. The award came through in the record time of fourteen days, with about a yard of Military Medal ribbon and congratulations from high officers all along the line. The morning of the day it came through thieving had been discovered in the battery, and a warning had been read out that the culprit was suspected, and that it would go hard with him when he was arrested. The decoration was received in the afternoon while harness-cleaning was in progress. Without loss of time the O.C. went out, a very stern look on his face, and had the battery formed up in a hollow square. There was only one thought in the men's heads—that the thief had been found. There was a kind of “Is it I” look in their faces. Without explanation, the O.C. called upon the ex-dental student to fall out. He fell out with his knees knocking and his chin wobbling, looking quite the guilty party. Then the O.C. commenced to read all the praise from officers at Brigade, Division, Corps, Army, of the gallant wheel-driver who had not only risked his life to save his pals, but had even had the fineness of forethought to bind up the horses' wounds with the puttees. Then came the yard of Military Medal ribbon, a piece of which was snipped off and pinned on to the lad's worn tunic. The battery yelled itself crimson. The dental student had learnt to swear, but he'd won his spurs. He's been promoted to the most dangerous and coveted job for a gunner or driver in the artillery; he's been put on to the B.C. party, which has to go forward into all the warm spots to observe the enemy and to lay in wire with the infantry when a “show” is in progress. Can you wonder that I get weary of seeing the London buses trundle along the well-swept asphalt of Oxford Street and long to take my chance once more with such chaps?

XIX

London

November 29, 1917

Here's such a November London day as no American ever imagines. A feeling of spring and greenness is in the air, and a glint of subdued gold. This morning as I came across Battersea Bridge it seemed as though war could not be—that, at worst, it was only an incident. The river lay below me so old and good-humoured—in front Cheyne Walk comfortably ancient and asleep. Through the chimneys and spires of the distant city blue scarfs of mist twisted and floated. Everything looked very happy. Boys—juvenile cannon-fodder—went whistling along the streets; housemaids leant shyly out of upstairs windows, shaking dusters to attract their attention. In the square by the Chelsea Pensioners, soldiers, all spit and polish, were going through their foot-drill; they didn't look too earnest about it—not at all as if in two months they would be in the trenches. It's the same with the men on leave—they live their fourteen days with cheery common sense as though they were going to live for ever. It's impossible, even when you meet the wounded, to discover any signs of tragedy in London. The war is referred to as “good old war,” “a bean-feast,” “a pretty little scrap,” but never as an undertaking of blood and torture. Last night there was strong moonlight, very favourable to an air raid. When I bought my paper this morning, the fat woman, all burst out and tied in at the most unexpected places, remarked to me with an air of disappointment: “They fergot h'us.”

“Who forgot us?” I asked.

“The bloomin' 'Uns. I wus h'expecting them lawst night.”

She spoke as though she'd had tea ready and the kettle boiling for a dear friend who had mis-remembered his engagement. England has set out to behave as if there was no death; she's jolly nearly succeeded in eliminating it from her thoughts. She's learnt the lesson of the chaps in the front-line trenches, and she's like a mother—like our mother—who has sons at the war—she's going to keep on smiling so as not to let her fellows down.

All the streets are full of girls in khaki—girls with the neatest, trimmest little ankles. The smartest of all are the Flying Corps girls, many of whom drive the army cars in the most daring manner. When you think of what they are and were, the war hasn't done so badly for them. They were purposeless before. Their whole aim was to get married. They felt that they weren't wanted in the world. They broke windows with Mother Pankhurst. Now they've learnt discipline and duty and courage. They'd man the trenches if we'd let them. They used to sneer at our sex; whether they married or remained single, quite a number of them became man-haters. But now—that kind of civil war is ended. Ask the young subaltern back on leave how much he is disliked by the girls. Babies and home have become the fashion. I received quite a shock last Sunday when I was saluted by one of these girls—saluted in a perfectly correct and soldierly fashion. The idea is right; if they outwardly acknowledge that they are a part of the Army, military discipline becomes their protection. But what a queer, changed world from the world of sloppy blouses, cheap and much-too-frequent jewellery, and silly sentimental ogling! England's become more alert and forthright; despite the war, she's happier. This isn't meant for a glorification of war; it's simply a statement of fact. The time had to come when women would become men; they've become men in this most noble and womanly fashion—through service. They're doing men's jobs with women's alacrity.

There is only one thing that will keep me from rejoining my battery in January, and that's this American book. We have come to the conclusion that to complete the picture of American determination to win out, I ought to go on a tour of inspection in France. The Government is interested in the book for propaganda work. The extreme worthwhileness of such an undertaking would reconcile me to a postponement of my return to the Front—nothing else will. All the papers here are full of the details of the advance at Cambrai. I want to be “out there” so badly. What does it matter that there's mud in the trenches, and death round every traverse, and danger in each step? It's the hour of glorious life I long for; for such an hour I would exchange all the sheeted beds and running bath-taps, not to mention the æons of Cathay. I can see those gunners forcing up their guns through the mire, and can hear the machine guns clicking away like infuriated typewriters. The whole gigantic pageant of death and endeavour moves before me—and I'm sick of clubs and safety. People say to me, “You're of more use here—you can serve your country better by being in England.” But when chaps are dying I want to take my chance with them. Don't be afraid I'll be kept here. I won't. I didn't know till I was held back against my will what a grip that curious existence at the Front had got on me. It isn't the horror one remembers—it's the exhilaration of the glory.

Cheer up, I'll be home some Christmas to fill your Christmas stocking. It won't be this Christmas—perhaps not the next; but perhaps the next after that. The young gentlemen from the Navy will be there too to help me. It's a promise.

I was present at the opening of the American Officers' Club by the Duke of Connaught. This club is the private house of Lord Leconfield. Other people have presented furniture, pictures, and money. It costs an American officer next to nothing, and is the best attempt that has been made to give a welcome to the U.S.A. in London. It's the most luxurious club in the West End at present.

XX

London

December 10, 1917

I got a letter from the Foreign Office, asking me to go back to America to do writing and lecturing for the British Mission. I'm sure you'll appreciate why I refused it, and be glad. I couldn't come back to U.S.A. to talk about nobilities when their sons and brothers are getting their first baptism of fire in the trenches. If I'd got anything worth saying I ought to be out there in the mud—saying it in deeds. But I've told Colonel B. that if ever I come out again wounded I will join the British Mission for a time. So now you have something to look forward to.

I hear though that permission will probably be granted to me within the next few days to start for France to go through the American lines and activities. You can guess how interesting that will be to me. I only hope they have a fight on while I'm in the American lines. I suppose the tour will take me the best part of a month, so I'll be away from England for Christmas. I rather hope I'll be in Paris—ever since reading Trilby I've longed to go to the Madeleine for Noël—which reminds me that I must get Trilby to read on the journey. It's rather a romantic life that I'm having nowadays, don't you think? I romp all over the globe and, in the intervals, have a crack at the Germans.

After I have finished writing this book on the American activities in France I shan't be content a moment till I've rejoined my battery. I feel a terrible shyster stopping away from the fighting a day longer than can be helped. This book, which I intend to be a spiritual interpretation of the soul of America, ought to do good to Anglo-American relations; so it seems of sufficiently vital importance. I can't think of anything that would do more to justify the blotting out of so many young lives than that, when the war is ended, England and America should have reason to forget the last hundred and thirty years of history, joining hands in a worldwide Anglo-Saxon alliance against the future murdering of nations. If I can contribute anything towards bringing that about, the missing of two months in the trenches will be worth it.

I went to a “good luck” dinner the other night, which we gave to my major on the occasion of his setting sail for Canada. Two others of the officers who used to be with me in the battery are to be on the same ship. A year ago in the Somme we used to pray for a Blighty—to-day, every officer in our mess has either got a Blighty or is dead. It gives one some idea of the brevity of our glory.

You'd love the West End shops were you here. I've just drawn down my blinds on Oxford Street; I walked back by way of Regent Street after lunch—all the windows are gay and full. Men in khaki are punting their girls through the crowds, doing their Christmas shopping. You can see the excited faces of little children everywhere. There doesn't seem to be much hint of war. One wonders whether people are brave to smile so much or only careless. You hear of tremendous lists of casualties, but there are just as many men. It looks as though we had man-power and resources to carry on the war interminably. There's only one class of person who is fed-up—and that's the person who has done least sacrificing. The person who has done none at all is a nervous wreck and can't stand the strain much longer. But ask the fighting men—they're perfectly happy and contented. Curious! When you've given everything, you can always give some more.

This may reach you before Christmas, though I doubt it. If it does, be as merry as we shall be, though absent.

XXI

London

December 10, 1917

I hope you feel as I do about my refusal of Colonel B.'. offer to send me back to America on the British Mission. I was also approached to-day to do press work for the Canadians. It seems as though everyone was conspiring to throw tempting plums in my way to keep me from returning to the Front. I don't know that I'm much good as a soldier; probably I'm very much better as a writer; but it's as though my soul, my decency, my honour were at stake—I must get back to the Front. The war is going to be won by men who go back to the trenches in the face of reason and common sense. If I had a leg off I should try for the Flying Corps. I may be a fool in the Front line, but I won't be finished as a fighting man till I'm done. They can keep all their cushy jobs for other chaps—I want the mud and the pounding of the guns. It doesn't really matter if one does get killed, provided he's set a good example. Do you remember that sermon we heard Dr. Jowett give about St. Paul at Lystra, going back after they had stoned him? “Back to the stones”—that expresses me exactly. I hate shell-fire and discomfort and death as much as any other man. But I'd rather lose everything than have to say good-bye to my standard of heroism. I don't want to kill Huns particularly, but I do want to prove to them that we're the better men. I can't do that by going through oratorical gymnastics in America or by writing racy descriptions of the Canadians' bravery for the international press. I shall be less than nothing when I return to France—merely subaltern whose life isn't very highly valued. But in my heart I shall know myself a man. There's no one understands my motive but you three, who have most to lose by my cripplement or death. All my friends over here think me an ass to throw away such chances—they say I'm economically squandering myself in the place where I'm least trained to do the best work. I know they talk sense; but they don't talk chivalry. If every man took the first chance offered him to get out of the catastrophe, where would the Huns' offensive end?

You've probably been writing hard at The Father of a Soldier, and saying all that you would like to say to me in that. I'm most anxious to see the manuscript of it. If you please, how could the son of the man who wrote that book accept a cushy job?

I wonder if you've reached the point yet where you don't think that dying matters? I suspect you have. You remember what Roosevelt said after seeing his last son off, “If he comes back he'll have to explain to me the why and how.” That's the Japanese spirit—honour demands when a man returns from battle that he can give good reasons why he is not dead. Others, his friends and comrades, are dead; how does he happen to be living? In that connection I think of Charlie S., lying somewhere in the mud of Ypres, with an insignificant cross above his head. He won a dozen decorations which were not given him. He had a baby whom he had only seen once. He was my pal. Why should I live, while he is dead? I can always hear him singing in the mess in a pleasant tenor voice. We used to share our affections and our troubles. He was what the Canadians call “a white man.” I can't see myself living in comfort while he is dead. It's odd the things one remembers about a man. We got the idea in the Somme that oil on the feet would prevent them from becoming frozen. One time when Charlie was going up forward we hadn't any oil, so he used brilliantine. It smelt of violets, and we made the highest of game of him. Poor old Charlie, he doesn't feel the cold now!

I'm afraid I've written a lot of rot in this letter—I've talked far too much of a host of things which are better left unsaid. But I had to—I wanted to make quite certain that you wouldn't blame me for refusing safety. I've relieved myself immensely by getting all of this off my chest.

XXII

London

December 17, 1917

I'm waiting for Eric, and, while waiting, propose to tell you the story of my past few days. I think when you've come to the end of my account you'll agree that I've been mixing my drinks considerably with regard to the personalities whose acquaintance I have made.

On Friday evening I was invited to dinner by Lieutenant C., the American Navy man with whom I crossed in November. I met—whom do you think?—George Grossmith, Leslie Henson, Julia James, Madge Saunders, and Lord C————.

I may say that Lord C————is not a member of the Gaiety Company, though I seem to have included him. The occasion was really the weekly dinner given by the American Officers' Club; the Gaiety Company was there to entertain. I think it is typical of England's attitude towards the American Army that people from such different walks of life should have been present to do the U.S.A. honour. Lord C————is a splendid type of old-fashioned courtier, with a great, kindly, bloodhound face. He had ensigns and officers of whatsoever rank brought to him, and spoke to them with the fine manly equality of the true-bred aristocrat. It was amusing to see the breezy American boys quite unembarrassed, most of them unaware of Lord C————'s political eminence, exchanging views in the friendliest of fashions, while the old gentleman, keeping seated, leaning forward on his stick with one hand resting attentively on a young fellow's arm, expressed his warm appreciation of America's eagerness.

Grossmith was in the uniform our boys wear—that of a lieutenant in the R.N.V.R. Leslie Henson is now a mechanic in the motor-transport by day and a Gaiety star in the evenings. He says that it costs him much money to cure the ache which the Army gives to his back—but he continues to do his “bit” by day and to amuse Tommies home on leave in the evenings.

Next day, Saturday, I went down to Bath to meet Raemaekers, the Dutch cartoonist. Mr. Lane was our host. Raemaekers is a great man. On the journey I tried to picture him. I saw him as a pale-faced man, with lank black hair and a touch of the Jew about him. I rather expected to find him worn and slightly more than middle-aged, with nervous hands and hollow eyes. I reminded myself that of the world's artists, he was the only one who had risen to the sheerness of the occasion. He expresses the conscience of the aloof cosmopolitan as regards Germany's war-methods. England, incurably good-humoured, has only Bairnsfather's comic portrayals of Old Bill to place beside this indignant Dutchman's moral hatred of Hun cruelty. From the station I went to the Bath Club; there I met not at all what I had imagined. He looks like a Frans Hals burgher, comfortable, with a high complexion, a small pointed beard, chestnut hair, and searching grey eyes. His charity of appearance belies him, for his eyes and mouth have a terrific purpose. His hands are the hands of a fighting man which crush. You would pass him in the street as unremarkable unless he looked at you—his eyes are daggers which stop you dead.

There were four of us at lunch—he sat at my right and we talked like a river in flood. He's just back from America, thrilled by the Americans' unimpassioned, lawful thoroughness. He had found something akin to his own temperament in the nation's genius—the same capacity to brush aside facetiousness in a crisis, and to attain a Hebrew prophet's faculty for hatred. One doesn't want to laugh when women lie dead in the ash-pits of Belgium. I have been with him many hours and have scarcely seen him smile, and yet his face is kindly. As you know, the Kaiser had set a price upon his head. His death would mean more to the Hun than the destruction of many British Divisions. He has pilloried the Kaiser's beastliness for all time. When future ages want to know what the Kaiser said to Christ, they will find it all in the thousand Raemaekers' sketches. Traps have been laid for his capture from time to time. Submarines have been dispatched with orders to take him alive. He knows what awaits him if such plans should meet with success—a lingering, tortured death; consequently he travels armed, and has promised his wife to blow his brains out the moment he is captured. We talked of many things—of the Hague and H. among other things. He knew the P.'., and drew a sketch of Mr. P. on the tablecloth with his pencil. I tried to purchase the tablecloth that I might send it to America, but the club secretary was before me.

In the afternoon I went to the railway-station and spoke with a porter who was pushing a barrow—Henry Chappell, who wrote “The Day”—the first war-poet of 1914. As luck would have it, it was Saturday, the day upon which John Lane had brought out his volume of poems; it was rather pathetic to find him carrying on with his humble task on the proudest afternoon of his life. I told him how I had seen his poem pasted up in prominent places all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He smiled in a patient fashion, and said that he had heard about it. I understand that he made one hundred pounds out of this poem and gave it all to the Red Cross. A gentleman, if you want to find one! I asked him if he didn't look forward to promotion now. He shook his head gravely—he liked portering. At parting I shook his hand, but, when I had dropped it, he touched his cap—and touched my heart in the doing of it.

On Sunday I was back in town. Eric turned up this morning, looking gallant and smiling, with an exceedingly glad eye. He's just the same as he always was, discontented with his job because he thinks it's too safe and trying to find one more dangerous. We're going to have a great time together, unless I get my marching orders from the Foreign Office.

I lunched with Raemaekers at Claridge's today and have just come back. He's an elemental moralist, encased in a burgher's exterior. He affects me with a sense of restrained power. One is surprised to see him eating like other men. How I wish that I could detest as he detests! And yet he has heart in plenty. He told me a story of a French battalion going out to die. The last soldier stepped out of the ranks towards his colonel, who was weeping for his men who would not come back. Flinging his arms about his commanding officer, he kissed him and said, “Do not fear, my Colonel; we shall not disgrace you.” He has an eye for magnanimity, that man.

XXIII

London

December 31, 1917

This foggy London morning early your three letters from 5th to 18th December arrived. I jumped out of bed, lit the gas, retreated under the blankets, and devoured them, leaning on my elbow.

This is the last day of the old year—a quaint old year it has been for all of us. I commenced it quite reconciled to the thought that it would be my last; and here I am, while poor Charlie S. and so many other fellows whom I loved are dead. It only shows how very foolish it is to anticipate trouble, for the last twelve months have been the very best and richest of my life. If I were to die now, I should feel that I had at least done something with my handful of years.

I'd like to have another glimpse of America now that in the face of reverses she has grown sterner. It's certain at last that there'll be a lot of American boys who won't come back. They're going to be real soldiers, going to go over the top and to endure all the fierce heroisms of an attack. It's cruel to say so, but it's better for America's soul that she should have her taste of battle after all the shouting.

On Saturday F. R. came to see us. He's home on leave. He and P. and I sitting down together after all the years that have intervened since we were at Oxford together! As F. expressed it, blinking through his spectacles, “Doesn't it seem silly that I should be dressed up like this and that you should be dressed like that?” He went out in January as a second lieutenant, and returned commanding his battalion. God moves in a mysterious way, doesn't He? One can't help wondering why some should “go west” at once and others should be spared. Bob H., who was also with us at Oxford, as you will remember, lasted exactly six days. The first day in the trenches he was wounded, but not sufficiently to go out. The sixth day he was killed.

Did I tell you that there's a nerve hospital near here crowded with nerve-shattered babies on one floor and nerve-shattered Tommies on the next? The babies are all dressed in red and the Tommies in the usual hospital blue. Each day the shell-shocked chaps go up to visit the children; the moment the door opens and the blue figures appear, the little red crowd stretch out their arms and cry, “My soldier! My soldier!” for each Tommy has his own particular pet. When a child gets a nervous attack, it is often only the one particular soldier who can do the soothing. Who'd think that men fresh from the carnage could be so tender! And people say that war makes men brutal. Humph!

XXIV

A French Port

January 3, 1918

Here I am again in France and extraordinarily glad to be here. I feel that I'm again a part of the game—I couldn't feel that while I was in London. I landed here this morning and arrive in Paris to-night. The crossing was one of the quietest. I know a lot of people didn't lie down at all, and still others slept with their clothes on. Like a sensible fellow I crept into my berth at 9 p.m., and slept like a top till morning. If we'd been submarined I shouldn't have known it.

I feel tremendously elated by the thought of this new adventure, and intend to make the most of it. As you know, nothing would have persuaded me to delay my return to the Front except an opportunity for doing work of these dimensions. I really do believe that I have the chance of a lifetime to do work of international importance. I want to make the Americans feel that they have become our kinsmen through the magnitude of their endeavour. And I want to make the British shake off their reticence in applauding the magnanimity of America's enthusiasm.

It's been snowing here; but I don't feel cold because of the warmth inside me. The place where I am now is one of the pleasure-haunts which Eric and I visited together in that golden summer of long ago. Little did I think that I should be here next time in such belligerent attire and on such an errand. Life's a queer kaleidoscope. But, oh, for such another summer, with the long secure peace of July days, and the whole green world to wander! One doubts whether El Dorado will ever come again.

I see the girl-soldiers of England everywhere nowadays. A reinforcing draft crossed over with me on the steamer—high complexions and laughing faces, trim uniforms and tiny ankles. They're brave! It's a pity we can't give them a chance of just one crack at the Huns. But they have to stop behind the lines and drive lorries, and be good girls, and beat typewriters. Their little girl-officers are mighty dignified. What a gallant world! I wouldn't have it otherwise.

For me the New Year is starting well. I face it in higher spirits than any of its predecessors. And well I may, for I didn't expect to be alive to greet 1918. I hope you are all just as much on the crest of the wave in your hopes and anticipations. Nothing can be worse than some of the experiences that lie behind—and that's some comfort. Nothing can be more chivalrous than the opportunities which lie before us.

So here's good-bye to you from France once again.

XXV

Paris January 8, 1918

Here I am in Paris, starting on my new adventure of writing the story of what the Americans are doing in the war. I left England on 2nd January, which was a Wednesday, and arrived here Thursday evening. As you know, while I was in the Front line I had very little idea of what France at war was like. One crossed from England, clambered on a military train with all the windows smashed, had a cold night journey, and found himself at once among the shell-holes. I was very keen on seeing what Paris was like; now that I've seen it, it's very difficult to describe. It's very much the same as it always was—only while its atmosphere was once champagne, now it is a strong, still wine. As in England, only to a greater extent, women are doing the work of men. The streets are full of the wounded—not the wounded with well-fitted artificial limbs that you see in London, but with ordinary wooden stumps, etc. Our English wounded are always gay and laughing—determined to treat the war as a humorous episode to the end. The French wounded are grave, afflicted, and ordinary. I think the Frenchman, with an emotional honesty of which we are incapable, has from the first viewed the war as a colossal Calvary, and has seen it against the historic skyline of a travailing world. Never by speech or gesture has he disguised the fact that he, as an individual, is engaged in a fore-ordained and unparalleled adventure of sacrifice. The Englishman, self-conscious of his own heroic gallantry, cloaks his fineness with pretended indifference and has succeeded in deceiving the world. Our sportsmanship in the face of death impresses more complex nations as irreligion. So while London is outwardly gayer than ever, Paris has a stiff upper lip, a look of sternness in its eyes, and very little laughter on its mouth. By nine-thirty in the evening every restaurant is closed, and the streets are empty till the soldiers on leave troop out from the theatres.

As for the food, I have seen no shortage in France as yet. You can get plenty of butter and sugar, whereas in London margarine is rare and sugar is doled out. The talk of France being ex hausted is all rubbish; you can feel the muscles of a great nation struggling the moment you land.

I have had a most kindly and helpful reception from the American Press Division. They have realized with the usual American quickness of mind the importance of what I propose to do. One of their officers starts out with me to-night on my first tour of military activities. It will take about five days. I then return to Paris to write up what I have seen, and afterwards set out again in a new direction. If I take the proper advantage of my opportunities, I ought to get an amazingly interesting lot of material.

Saturday I was lucky enough to secure a car, and went the round of my introductions, to the British Embassy and your friends from Newark.

I've been to two theatres. The audiences were composed for the most part of soldiers on leave—American, British, Canadian, Australian, Belgian, French, with the merest sprinkling of civilians. Sunday I walked through the Luxembourg, most of the galleries of which are closed. Afterwards I walked in the Gardens and watched the Parisians sliding on the ice. For the moment they forgot they were at war, and became children. There were little boys and girls, soldiers with their sweethearts, fat old men and women, all running and pushing and sliding and falling and chattering. I thought of Trilby with her grave, kind eyes. Then I walked down the Boule Miche to Notre Dame, where women were praying for their dead.

To-day Paris is under snow, and again the child spirit has asserted itself. Soldiers and sailors are pelting one another with snowballs in the streets, and Jupiter continues to pluck his geese and send their feathers drifting down the sky.

This time last year I was marching into action with temperature of 104 degrees, and you were reaching London, wondering whether I was truly coming on leave. A queer year it has been; in spite of all our anticipations to the contrary, we're still alive. I wish we were to meet again this year, and we may. We know so little. As Whitcomb Riley says in complete acceptance of human fortuitousness, “No child knows when it goes to sleep.”

XXVI

Paris

January 13, 1918

About an hour ago I got into Paris from my first trip. I've been where M. and I spent our splendid summer so many years ago, only now the river is spanned with ice and the country is a grey-sage colour. From what I can see the Americans are preparing as if for a war that is going to last for thirty years. America is in the war literally to her last man and her last dollar; when her hour comes to strike, she will be like a second England in the fight.

I made my tour with an officer who was with Hoover three years in Belgium, and who before that was a student in Paris. As a consequence, he speaks French like a native. Every detail of my trip was arranged ahead by telephone and telegram; automobiles were waiting. There is no pretence about the American Army. My rank as lieutenant is, of course, quite inadequate to the task I have undertaken. But the American high officer carries no side or swank. Having produced my credentials, I am seated at the mess beside generals and allowed to ask any questions, however searching. Everyone I have met as yet is hats off to the English and the French—they go out of their way to make comparisons which are in their own disfavour and unjust to themselves. I have been making a particular study of their transport facilities and their artillery training. Both are being carried out on a magnificently thorough scale. I undertake to assert that they will have as fine artillery as can be found on the Western Front by the time they are ready. I certainly never saw such painstaking and methodical training.

As you know, the phase of the war that I am particularly interested in is the closeness of international relations that will result when the war is ended. The tightening of bonds between the French, Americans and English can be daily witnessed and felt. The Americans are loud in their praise of their French and British instructors—the instructors are equally proud of their pupils. On the street, in hotels and trains, the three races hobnob together.

I came back to-day with a French artillery and cavalry officer—splendid fellows. We had fought together on the Somme, we discovered, and had occupied the same Front, though at separate times, at Vimy. The artilleryman was a young French noble, and, as only noblemen can these days, had a car waiting for him at the station He insisted on taking me to my hotel, and we parted the most excellent friends.

I have two days in which to write up my experiences, and on Tuesday I shall set out on a tour in a new direction. So much I am able to tell you; the rest will be in my book when it is published.

This time last year we were together in London—how long ago it seems and sounds! Years are longer and of more value than they once were. This year I'm here. Next year where? This time next year the war will not be ended, I'm certain, nor even the year after that, perhaps. The more we feel our strength, the more we are called upon to suffer, the sterner will become our terms.

It's nearly eleven, my dear ones, and time that I was asleep. I have Henri Bordeaux's story of The Last Days of Fort Vaux beside me—it's most heroic reading. What shall we do when the gates of heroism grow narrow and peace has been declared? Something spiritual will have gone out of life when the challenge of the horrible is ended.

XXVII

Paris

January 19, 1918

I'm expecting to go to American Headquarters on Tuesday and to see something of work immediately behind the lines. I find what I am doing exceptionally interesting, and hope to do a good book on it.

Wherever one goes the best men one meets are Hoover's disciples from Belgium. They tell extraordinary stories of the heroism of the patriots whom they knew there—people by the score who duplicated Miss Cavell's courage and paid the penalty. Their experience of Hun brutality has somehow dulled their sense of horror—they speak of it as something quite commonplace and to be expected.

On Friday I saw Miss Holt's work for the blind. She bears out for France all that I have said about the amazing sharing of the wounded in England. One man in her care was not only totally blind, but he had also lost both arms. In the hospital there were men less grievously mutilated than himself, who hardly knew how to endure their loss. For the sake of the cheeriness of his example, he used to go round the ward with gifts of cigarettes, which he almost thought he lit for the men himself, for he used to say to Miss Holt before undertaking such a journey, “You are my hands.”

We, in England, and still less in America, have never approached the loathing which is felt for the Boche in France. Men spit as they utter his name, as though the very word was foul in the mouth. Wherever you go lonely men or women are pointed out to you; all of his or her family are behind the German lines. We think we have suffered, but we have not sounded one fathom of this depth of agony. On every hand I hear that the French Army is stronger than ever, better equipped and more firm in its moral. As an impassioned Frenchman said to me yesterday, his eyes blazing as he banged the table, “They shall not pass. I say so—and I am France.”

In the face of all this I do not wonder that the French misunderstand the easy good-humour with which we English go out to die. In their eyes and with the throbbing of their wounds, this war is a matter for neither good-humour nor sportsmanship, but only for the indignant, inarticulate wrath of a Hebrew god. If every weapon was taken from their hands and all the young men were gone, with clenched fists those who were left would smite and smite to the last. It is fitting that they should feel this way, but I'm glad that our English boys can still laugh while they die.

And now I'm going out on the Boulevards to get lunch.

XXVIII

Paris

January 30, 1918

Yesterday on my return to Paris I found all your letters awaiting me—a real big pile which took me over an hour to read. The latest was written on New Year's Day in the throes of coal shortage and intense cold. Really it seems absurd that you should be starved for warmth in America. Last week I was within eighteen kilometres of the Front line staying in a hotel as luxurious as the Astor, with plenty of heat and a hot bath at midnight in a private bathroom. All the appointments and comforts were perfect; booming through the night came the perpetual muttering of the guns. There were troops of all kinds marching up for an attack; the villages were packed, but there was no disorganization.

Well, I've had a great trip this last time. I went to see refugee work—and saw it. There were barracks full of babies—the youngest only six days' old. There were very many children who have been re-captured from the Huns.

To-morrow I start off for the borders of Switzerland to see the repatriated French civilians arrive. Then I go with the head of the Red Cross for a tour to see the reconstruction work in the devastated districts. When that is finished, I return to London to put my book together. I hope to get back to my battery about the end of March.

What a time I have had. A year ago it would have seemed impossible. I've motored, gone by speeders and trains to all kinds of quiet and ancient places which it would never have entered my head to visit in peace times. The American soldier is everywhere, striking a strange note of modernity and contrast. He sits on fences through the country-side, swinging his legs and smoking Bull Durham, when he isn't charging a swinging sack with a bayonet. He is the particular pal of all the French children.

I'm now due for a day of interviews and shall have to ring off. I rose at seven this morning so as to write this letter. At the moment I'm sitting in a deep arm-chair, with an electric lamp at my elbow. It's an awful war! In less than two months I'll be sitting in clothes that I haven't taken off for a fortnight—the mud will be my couch and the flash of the guns my reading lamp. It's funny, but up there in the discomfort I shall be ten times more happy.

XXIX

Paris

February 13, 1918

I've not heard from you for two weeks—which is no fault of yours. There was a delay in getting passports—so I'm only just back from the devastated districts and get on board the train for London to-night. It's exactly six weeks today since I left England on this adventure.

I've done a good many things since last I wrote you. Did I tell you that among others I visited Miss Holt's work for the blind? I can think of nothing which does more to call out one's sympathy than to sit among those sightless eyes. I have talked about courage, but these men leave me appalled and silent. They are covered with decorations—the Legion d'.onneur, etc. They all have their stories. One, after he had been wounded and while there was still a chance of saving his sight, insisted on being taken to his General that he might give information about a German mine. When his mission was completed his chance of ever seeing again was ended.

On the way back I saw Joffre walking. I now know why they call him Papa Joffre. He is huge, ungainly, and white and kind. Somehow he made me think of a puppy—he had such an air of surprise. There was a premature touch of spring in the tree-tops. The grand old man of France was aware of it—he looked as though it were his first spring, so young in an ancient sort of way. He was stopping all the time to watch the sparrows flying and the shrubs growing misty with greenness. For all his braid and decorations he looked like an amiable boy of splendid size.

And then I went to Amiens. When I was in the line, it was always my dream to get there. Our senior officers used to play hooky in Amiens and come back with wonderful tales of sheeted beds and perpetual baths. I got there toward evening and was met by a British Staff officer with a car. After dinner I escaped him and wandered through the crooked streets, encountering everywhere my dearly beloved British Tommy, straight out of the trenches for a few hours' respite. As I passed estaminets I could hear concertinas being played and voices singing. It was London and heroism and home-sickness all muddled up together that these voices sang. And they sang just one song. It is the first song I heard in France, when the war was very much younger. When the war is ended, I expect it will be the last. If the war goes on for another thirty years, our Tommies will be singing it—wheezing it out on concertinas and mouth-organs, in rain and sunshine, on the line of march, on leave or in their cramped billets. Invincible optimists that they are—so ordinary, so extraordinary, so good-humoured and mild! I peered in through the estaminets' windows of Amiens—there they sat with their equipment off, their elbows on the table and their small beer before them. And here's what they sang, as so many who are dead have sung before them:

“Après la guerre fini

Tous les soldats parti,

Mademoiselle 'ave a souvenir—

Après la guerre fini.”

After all my wandering along French and American fronts, I was back among my own people.

My final night in Amiens was equally typical. I went to the officers' club and found a sing-song in progress. There was a cavalry major there who had been in the show at Cambrai. He was evidently a hunting-man, for he kept on getting off his hunting calls whenever things threatened to become dull. Most of the music was rag-time, which offended him very much. “Let's sing something English,” he kept on saying. So we gave him “John Peel,” “Hearts of Oak,” “Drink to me only with thine Eyes”—and he went to bed happy.

I had a good fast car, so using Amiens as our base we struck into the Aisne, Oise, and Somme, covering a good many kilometres a day. In these districts the Huns were masters a year ago—and now we are ploughing. The enemy withdrew from these districts last March. Nearly all the demolition is wilful, and very little of it is due to shell-fire. In town after town scarcely a house is left standing—everything is gutted. The American Red Cross is trying to do something to alleviate this distress. It was in a ruined château I found the Smith College Unit and, much to my surprise, Miss W. from Newark, who had just received a letter from M. She was wanting to go to Amiens, so we put her in the car and took her back with us.

I'm longing to get to England to read all your letters. I feel quite out of touch. To-morrow I shall be in London.

I was in Paris when the Huns were overhead, and saw one of them come down. The calmness of the people was amazing. There was no dashing for the Métro or other funk holes; only a contemptuous cheeriness. The French are great.

XXX

London

February 18, 1918

To-day I have made a start on my book Out to Win, and miss you very much. It's quite a difficult thing, I find, to really concentrate on literary work in a strange environment. I wish I could take a magic powder and find myself back in my own little study, with my own little family, till the book is written.

Heaps of people I met in France were returning to America, and promised to telephone you to say they had seen me.

I stumbled across a most inspiring conversation which I overheard the other day, and which, if I had time, I would work into a story, entitled “His Bit.”

I was sitting in front of two women on a bus.

“Well,” said one, “when they told me that Phil was married, you could 'ave knocked me darn wiv a feather.”

It transpired that Phil was a C3 class man, no good for active service. He had met a girl, turned out into the streets by her parents because she was about to have a child by a soldier now dead, whom she had not married. Phil, without asking her any questions, did his “bit”—led her off and married her right away because he was sorry for her.

“And she ain't a wicked girl,” said one of the good ladies on the bus. “She didn't mean no harm. She was just soft-like to a Tommy on leave, I expect. It was 'ard lines on 'er. But that Phil—my goodness, he'll make 'er a good 'usband. Is the child born? I should just fink so. 'E's that proud, she might be 'is own dawter. 'E carries 'er raund all over the plaice, Lord bless yer. And 'is wife's people, they can't make too much of 'im. No, 'e's not strong—a C 3 man. I thought I told yer. She 'as ter work to 'elp 'im along. But between 'em——There! I'm 'ats h'orf to Phil. They're a bloomin' pair of love-birds.”

I like to think of Phil, don't you? I like to know that chaps like him are in the world. He couldn't fight the Germans; but he could play the man by a dead soldier.

That's a little bit of real life to help you along. Now I'm going to knock off and rest.

XXXI

London

February 24, 1918

I'm not spending much time on letter-writing just at present. From morning till night, just as I did when I was writing The Glory of the Trenches, I shove away at my new book. I am most anxious to get it creditably finished and soon. The weather is getting quite ripping for the Front and I'm keen to be back in time for the spring offensive.

You'll be pleased to know that, under my encouragement, your youngest son has broken out into literature. He did it while I was away in France. And the result is extraordinarily fine. He's managed to fling the spirit of his job on paper—it lives and gets you. When they are asked at the end of a patrol what they have been doing, they answer, “Pushing Water”—so that he's made that answer his title.

When I took the manuscript to W., he said: “But haven't you another brother? What's he doing? Where's his manuscript? And what about your mother and sister in America, and your sister in Holland? Don't tell me that they're not all writing?”

At that moment I felt a deep sympathy for Solomon, who I'm sure must have been a publisher. Only a publisher would say so tiredly: “Of making many books there is no end.”

On Tuesday another beastly birthday is due me—but I shan't say anything about it. I shall commence my new lease of life with a meat-card in my hand and no prospect of being really fully fed till I get back to France. For the first time England is feeling a genuine shortage. She isn't particularly annoyed at being rationed, but the worry you have over finding out how much you are allowed to eat and where and when, causes people a good deal of trouble. My own impression is that there is plenty of food in England at present, but that we want to conserve it in order to be able to lend America our tonnage.

XXXII

London March 31, 1919

Below my window, as I write, I can hear the stirring of the Strand. Newsboys are calling the latest papers, motor-horns hoot, and the million feet of London, each pair with their own separate story, clatter against the pavement. What a world! How do we ever get tired of living! Every day there are new faces, bringing new affections and adventure, new demands for tenderness and strength. These footsteps will go on. They will never grow quiet. A thousand years hence they will clatter along these pavements through the miracle of re-creation. Why do we talk of death and old age? It is not true that we terminate. Even in this world the river in whose movement we have our part still goes on—the river of opinions, of effort, of habitation. The sound of us dies faint up the road to the listener who stands stationary; but the fact that at last he ceases to hear us does not mean that we have ceased to exist—only that we have gone farther. How arbitrary we are in our petty prejudices against immortality! God hears more distinctly the travellers to whom men have ceased to listen. Nothing to me is more certain than that we go on and on, drawing nearer to the source of our creation through the ages. Just as I came home to you after so many risks, such suffering, elation, bloodshed, so through the unthinkable adventure of time we journey home to our Maker. Going out of sight is sad, as are all partings. But I can bear to part now in a way that I could not before I saw the heavens open in the horror of war. I have ceased to be afraid of the unguess-able, and better still, I have lost my desire to guess. Not to stand still—to press onwards like soldiers—that is all that is required of us. I have heard men talk about world-sorrows, but if you trace them back, our sorrows are all for ourselves—they are a personal equation. To develop one's personality in the remembering of others seems to me to be the only road to happiness. All this talk—why? Because of the footsteps beneath my window!

The leave train has just arrived at Charing Cross from France. It steamed across the Thames with the men singing “The Land where the Bluebells grow.” There was laughter and longing in their singing.

XXXIII

Bath

March 24, 1918

Here I am with Mr. Lane, spending the weekend. It's a wonderful spring Sunday—no hint of war or anything but flowers and sunshine. An hour ago I halted outside the newspaper office and read the latest telegrams of the great German offensive. It seemed like the autumn of 1914, reading of death and not being a part of it. They'll not take very long in letting me get back to my battery now. One's curiously egotistic—I feel, if only I were out there, that with my little bit of extra help everything would go well.

Yesterday we went to Batheaston Manor, a fine old Jacobean house, to tea—the kind of house that one has dreamt of possessing. There were high elms with rooks cawing and green lawns with immaculately gravelled paths. Inside there were broken landings and rooms with little stairs descending, and panelling, and pictures—everything for which one used to care. The late Belgian Minister to England, Count de la Laing, was there—a sad, courteous man. As we walked back with him to Bath along the canal, he remarked casually that all the art treasures in his château outside of Brussels had been shipped to Germany.

We spent the afternoon seeing the King's pictures—mostly Gainsboroughs—which have been brought to Bath from Buckingham Palace. From here we went to tea with an old lady, Miss Tanner, who rode on her lonesome through Persia many years ago and consequently has gained a Lady Hester Stanhope reputation and, what is more important, a splendid selection of Eastern rugs and silverwork. After that we walked home by way of the great crescent which forms the scene in The School for Scandal.

An odd day to dodge in between experiences of European war! I have to pinch myself awake to remember what is happening at this moment in the Front-line trenches. Probably within a few weeks I shall be there—and feeling very much more contented with myself than I do now.

XXXIV

London March 31, 1918

Eric is with me. I am very glad to have him for my last days in England, and I do hope that Reggie may get here in time to see me. He's ordered south in two weeks' time, but I may be in France by then. I report at Canadian Headquarters to-morrow, and will probably be sent straight down to camp, and from there to France within two weeks.

Have you seen General Currie's stirring message to the Canadians, saying that he expects them to die to a man if, by so doing, they can push the Huns back? This summer will see the biggest of all the battles. I'm wildly excited and longing to get back. There'll be some of the old glamour about this new fighting—it's all in the open. We've got away from trench warfare at last. The beasts are all over the country which we fought for and have recaptured since 1916. They've destroyed for a second time all the reconstruction work that I saw in the devastated areas. I'm wondering if all the girls got out in time. There were so many American girls there.

Don't you dear people get down in the mouth when I'm again at the Front. It's where I've wanted to be for a great many months—ever since I recovered. To be able to go back now, when there's really something doing, is very fitting. I should have been wasting my time, perhaps, during the inactivity of the winter, if I'd been sitting in dug-outs when I might have been writing Out to Win. But no man, whatever his capacities, is wasting his time in fighting at this hour of crisis. I've been made ashamed by the excuses I've heard put up for various quitters who have taken bomb-proof jobs. I'm in terror lest I should be confused with such. Heaven knows, I'm no fonder of killing or of being killed than anyone else, but there are times when everything decent responds to the demand of duty. I shall absolutely be immensely happy to be a man again, taking my chances. I know that you will be glad for me. If you hadn't known for certain that I was going back, you'd have been making excuses for me in your hearts during these last five months. So smile and be proud. And whatever happens, go on being proud and smiling. Your job is to set an example. That's your contribution towards winning the war.

It's past midnight, and I go to camp to-morrow. I'll let you have a cable when I go to the Front—so you needn't be nervous.

XXXV

In Camp. England April 4, 1918