GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

 BY JEFFERY FARNOL

 BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1918

 _Copyright, 1917_, BY THE RIDGEWAY CO. , IN THE UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN. 

 _Copyright, 1917_, BY THE OUTLOOK COMPANY. 

 _Copyright, 1917_, THE TRIBUNE ASSOCIATION. 

 _Copyright, 1918_, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 

 _All rights reserved_

 Published, March, 1918

 Norwood Press Set up and electrotyped by J. S. Cushing Co. , Norwood, Mass. , U. S. A. Presswork by S. J. Parkhill & Co. , Boston, Mass. , U. S. A. 

GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

_BY JEFFERY FARNOL_

 THE BROAD HIGHWAY THE AMATEUR GENTLEMAN THE HONOURABLE MR. TAWNISH BELTANE THE SMITH THE DEFINITE OBJECT

To

ALL MY

AMERICAN FRIENDS

CONTENTS

 CHAPTER PAGE

 I FOREWORD 1 II CARTRIDGES 6 III RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS 12 IV CLYDEBANK 24 V SHIPS IN MAKING 33 VI THE BATTLE CRUISERS 40 VII A HOSPITAL 58 VIII THE GUNS 69 IX A TRAINING CAMP 88 X ARRAS 103 XI THE BATTLEFIELDS 115 XII FLYING MEN 125 XIII YPRES 144 XIV WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE 156

GREAT BRITAIN AT WAR

I

FOREWORD

In publishing these collected articles in book form (the result of myvisits to Flanders, the battlefields of France and divers of thegreat munition centres), some of which have already appeared in thepress both in England and America, I do so with a certain amount ofdiffidence, because of their so many imperfections and of theirinadequacy of expression. But what man, especially in these days, mayhope to treat a theme so vast, a tragedy so awful, without a sureknowledge that all he can say must fall so infinitely far below thedaily happenings which are, on the one hand, raising Humanity to agodlike altitude or depressing it lower than the brutes. But, becausethese articles are a simple record of what I have seen and what Ihave heard, they may perhaps be of use in bringing out of theshadow--that awful shadow of "usualness" into which they havefallen--many incidents that would, before the war, have roused theworld to wonder, to pity and to infinite awe. 

Since the greater number of these articles was written, America hasthrown her might into the scale against merciless Barbarism andAutocracy; at her entry into the drama there was joy in English andFrench hearts, but, I venture to think, a much greater joy in thehearts of all true Americans. I happened to be in Paris on thememorable day America declared war, and I shall never forget thedeep-souled enthusiasm of the many Americans it was my privilege toknow there. America, the greatest democracy in the world, had at lasttaken her stand on the side of Freedom, Justice and Humanity. 

As an Englishman, I love and am proud of my country, and, in theyears I spent in America, I saw with pain and deep regret themisunderstanding that existed between these two great nations. InAmerica I beheld a people young, ardent, indomitable, full of theunconquerable spirit of Youth, and I thought of that older countryacross the seas, so little understanding and so little understood. 

And often I thought if it were only possible to work a miracle, if itwere only possible for the mists of jealousy and ill-feeling, orrivalry and misconception to be swept away once and for all--if onlythese two great nations could be bonded together by a common ideal, heart to heart and hand to hand, for the good of Humanity, whatearthly power should ever be able to withstand their united strength. In my soul I knew that the false teaching of history--that greatobstacle to the progress of the world--was one of the underlyingcauses of the misunderstanding, but it was an American Ambassador whoput this into words. If, said he, America did not understand the aimsand hopes of Great Britain, _it was due to the textbooks of historyused in American schools_. 

To-day, America, through her fighting youth and manhood, will seeEnglishmen as they are, and not as they have been represented. Surelythe time has come when we should try and appreciate each other at ourtrue worth. 

These are tragic times, sorrowful times, yet great and noble times, for these are days of fiery ordeal whereby mean and petty things areforgotten and the dross of unworthy things burned away. To-day thetwo great Anglo-Saxon peoples stand united in a noble comradeship forthe good of the world and for those generations that are yet to be, acomradeship which I, for one, do most sincerely hope and pray maydevelop into a veritable brotherhood. One in blood are we, in speech, and in ideals, and though sundered by generations of misunderstandingand false teaching, to-day we stand, brothers-in-arms, fronting thebrute for the freedom of Humanity. 

Americans will die as Britons have died for this noble cause;Americans will bleed as Britons have bled; American women will mournas British women have mourned these last terrible years; yet, inthese deaths, in this noble blood, in these tears of agony andbereavement, surely the souls of these two great nations will drawnear, each to each, and understand at last. 

Here in a word is the fulfilment of the dream; that, by the unitedeffort, by the blood, by the suffering, by the heartbreak endured ofthese two great English-speaking races, wars shall be made to ceasein all the world; that peace and happiness, truth and justice shallbe established among us for all generations, and that the unitedpowers of the Anglo-Saxon races shall be a bulwark behind whichMankind may henceforth rest secure. 

Now, in the name of Humanity, I appeal to American and to Briton towork for, strive, think and pray for this great and gloriousconsummation. 

II

CARTRIDGES

At an uncomfortable hour I arrived at a certain bleak railwayplatform and in due season, stepping into a train, was whirled awaynorthwards. And as I journeyed, hearkening to the talk of mycompanions, men much travelled and of many nationalities, my mind wasagog for the marvels and wonders I was to see in the workshops ofGreat Britain. Marvels and wonders I was prepared for, and yet foronce how far short of fact were all my fancies!

Britain has done great things in the past; she will, I pray, do evengreater in the future; but surely never have mortal eyes looked on aneffort so stupendous and determined as she is sustaining, and willsustain, until this most bloody of wars is ended. 

The deathless glory of our troops, their blood and agony and scorn ofdeath have been made pegs on which to hang much indifferent writingand more bad verse--there have been letters also, sheaves of them, inmany of which effusions one may discover a wondering surprise thatour men can actually and really fight, that Britain is still theBritain of Drake and Frobisher and Grenville, of Nelson and Blake andCochrane, and that the same deathless spirit of heroic determinationanimates her still. 

To-night, as I pen these lines, our armies are locked in desperatebattle, our guns are thundering on many fronts, but like an echo totheir roar, from mile upon mile of workshops and factories andshipyards is rising the answering roar of machinery, the thunderouscrash of titanic hammers, the hellish rattle of riveters, thewhining, droning, shrieking of a myriad wheels where another vastarmy is engaged night and day, as indomitable, as fierce of purposeas the army beyond the narrow seas. 

I have beheld miles of workshops that stand where grass grew twoshort years ago, wherein are bright-eyed English girls, Irishcolleens and Scots lassies by the ten thousand, whose dexterousfingers flash nimbly to and fro, slender fingers, yet fingerscontriving death. I have wandered through a wilderness of whirringdriving-belts and humming wheels where men and women, with the samefeverish activity, bend above machines whose very hum sang to me ofdeath, while I have watched a cartridge grow from a disc of metal tothe hellish contrivance it is. 

And as I watched the busy scene it seemed an unnatural and awfulthing that women's hands should be busied thus, fashioning means forthe maiming and destruction of life--until, in a remote corner, Ipaused to watch a woman whose dexterous fingers were fitting finishedcartridges into clips with wonderful celerity. A middle-aged woman, this, tall and white-haired, who, at my remark, looked up with abright smile, but with eyes sombre and weary. 

"Yes, sir, " she answered above the roar of machinery, "I had two boysat the front, but--they're a-laying out there somewhere, killed bythe same shell. I've got a photo of their graves--very neat theylook, though bare, and I'll never be able to go and tend 'em, y'see--nor lay a few flowers on 'em. So I'm doin' this instead--tohelp the other lads. Yes, sir, my boys did their bit, and now they'regone their mother's tryin' to do hers. "

Thus I stood and talked with this sad-eyed, white-haired woman whohad cast off selfish grief to aid the Empire, and in her I salutedthe spirit of noble motherhood ere I turned and went my way. 

But now I woke to the fact that my companions had vanished utterly;lost, but nothing abashed, I rambled on between long alleys ofclattering machines, which in their many functions seemed inthemselves almost human, pausing now and then to watch and wonder andexchange a word with one or other of the many workers, until a kindlyworks-manager found me and led me unerringly through that riotousjungle of machinery. 

He brought me by devious ways to a place he called "holyground"--long, low outbuildings approached by narrow, woodencauseways, swept and re-swept by men shod in felt--a place this, where no dust or grit might be, for here was the magazine, with thefilling sheds beyond. And within these long sheds, each seated behinda screen, were women who handled and cut deadly cordite into needfullengths as if it had been so much ribbon, and always and everywherethe same dexterous speed. 

He led me, this soft-voiced, keen-eyed works-manager, throughwell-fitted wards and dispensaries, redolent of clean, druggy smellsand the pervading odour of iodoform; he ushered me through dininghalls long and wide and lofty and lighted by many windows, wherecountless dinners were served at a trifling cost per head; and so atlast out upon a pleasant green, beyond which rose the great gateswhere stood the cars that were to bear my companions and myself uponour way. 

"They seem to work very hard!" said I, turning to glance back whencewe had come, "they seem very much in earnest. "

"Yes, " said my companion, "every week we are turning out--" here henamed very many millions--"of cartridges. "

"To be sure they are earning good money!" said I thoughtfully. 

"More than many of them ever dreamed of earning, " answered theworks-manager. "And yet--I don't know, but I don't think it isaltogether the money, somehow. "

"I'm glad to hear you say that--very glad!" said I, "because it is agreat thing to feel that they are working for the Britain that is, and is to be. "

III

RIFLES AND LEWIS GUNS

A drive through a stately street where were shops which might rivalBond Street, the Rue de la Paix, or Fifth Avenue for the richness andvariety of their contents; a street whose pavements were throngedwith well-dressed pedestrians and whose roadway was filled with motorcars--vehicles, these, scornful of the petrol tax and such-likemundane and vulgar restrictions--in fine, the street of a rich andthriving city. 

But suddenly the stately thoroughfare had given place to a meanerstreet, its princely shops had degenerated into blank walls or grimyyards, on either hand rose tall chimney stacks belching smoke;instead of dashing motor cars, heavy wains and cumbrous wagonsjogged by; in place of the well-dressed throng were figuresrough-clad and grimy that hurried along the narrow sidewalks--butthese rough-clad people walked fast and purposefully. So we hummedalong streets wide or narrow but always grimy, until we were haltedat a tall barrier by divers policemen, who, having inspected ourcredentials, permitted us to pass on to the factory, or series offactories, that stretched themselves before us, building onbuilding--block on block--a very town. 

Here we were introduced to various managers and heads of departments, among whom was one in the uniform of a Captain of Engineers, underwhose capable wing I had the good fortune to come, for he, it seemed, had lived among engines and machinery, had thought out and contrivedlethal weapons from his youth up, and therewith retained so kindlyand genial a personality as drew me irresistibly. Wherefore I gavemyself to his guidance, and he, chatting of books and literature andthe like trivialities, led me along corridors and passage-ways tosee the wonder of the guns. And as we went, in the air about us was astir, a hum that grew and ever grew, until, passing a massive swingdoor, there burst upon us a rumble, a roar, a clashing din. 

We stood in a place of gloom lit by many fires, a vast place whoseroof was hid by blue vapour; all about us rose the dim forms of hugestamps, whose thunderous stroke beat out a deep diapason to the ringof countless hand-hammers. And, lighted by the sudden glare offurnace fires were figures, bare-armed, smoke-grimed, wild of aspect, figures that whirled heavy sledges or worked the levers of the giantsteam-hammers, while here and there bars of iron new-glowing from thefurnace winked and twinkled in the gloom where those wild, half-nakedmen-shapes flitted to and fro unheard amid the thunderous din. Awedand half stunned, I stood viewing that never-to-be-forgotten sceneuntil I grew aware that the Captain was roaring in my ear. 

"Forge . . . Rifle barrels . . . Come and see and mind where you tread!"

Treading as seemingly silent as those wild human shapes, thatstraightened brawny backs to view me as I passed, that grinned inthe fire-glow and spoke one to another, words lost to my stunnedhearing, ere they bent to their labour again, obediently I followedthe Captain's dim form until I was come where, bare-armed, leathern-aproned and be-spectacled, stood one who seemed of someaccount among these salamanders, who, nodding to certain wordsaddressed to him by the Captain, seized a pair of tongs, swung open afurnace door, and plucking thence a glowing brand, whirled it withpractised ease, and setting it upon the dies beneath a hugesteam-hammer, nodded his head. Instantly that mighty engine fell towork, thumping and banging with mighty strokes, and with each strokethat glowing steel bar changed and changed, grew round, grew thin, hunched a shoulder here, showed a flat there, until, lo! before myeyes was the shape of a rifle minus the stock! Hereupon thebe-spectacled salamander nodded again, the giant hammer becameimmediately immobile, the glowing forging was set among hundreds ofothers and a voice roared in my ear:

"Two minutes . . . This way. "

A door opens, closes, and we are in sunshine again, and the Captainis smilingly reminiscent of books. 

"This is greater than books, " said I. 

"Why, that depends, " says he, "there are books and books . . . Thisway!"

Up a flight of stairs, through a doorway, and I am in a shop wherehuge machines grow small in perspective. And here I see the roughforging pass through the many stages of trimming, milling, turning, boring, rifling until comes the assembling, and I take up thefinished rifle ready for its final process--testing. So downstairs wego to the testing sheds, wherefrom as we approach comes the sound ofdire battle, continuous reports, now in volleys, now in singlesniping shots, or in rapid succession. 

Inside, I breathe an air charged with burnt powder and behold in along row, many rifles mounted upon crutches, their muzzles levelledat so many targets. Beside each rifle stand two men, one to sight andcorrect, and one to fire and watch the effect of the shot by means ofa telescope fixed to hand. 

With the nearest of these men I incontinent fell into talk--a chattyfellow this, who, busied with pliers adjusting the back-sight of arifle, talked to me of lines of sight and angles of deflection, hisremarks sharply punctuated by rifle-shots, that came now slowly, nowin twos and threes and now in rapid volleys. 

"Yes, sir, " said he, busy pliers never still, "guns and rifles isvery like us--you and me, say. Some is just naturally good and someis worse than bad--load up, George! A new rifle's like a kid--prettysure to fire a bit wide at first--not being used to it--we was allkids once, sir, remember! But a bit of correction here an' there'llput that right as a rule. On the other hand there's rifles as OldNick himself nor nobody else could make shoot straight--ready, George? And it's just the same with kids! Now, if you'll stick youreyes to that glass, and watch the target, you'll see how near she'llcome this time--all right, George!" As he speaks the rifle speaksalso, and observing the hit on the target, I sing out:

"Three o'clock!"

Ensues more work with the pliers; George loads and fires and with oneeye still at the telescope I give him:

"Five o'clock!"

Another moment of adjusting, again the rifle cracks and this time Iannounce:

"A bull!"

Hereupon my companion squints through the glass and nods: "Right-oh, George!" says he, then, while George the silent stacks the testedrifle with many others, he turns to me and nods, "Got 'im that time, sir--pity it weren't a bloomin' Hun!"

Here the patient Captain suggests we had better go, and unwillinglyI follow him out into the open and the sounds of battle die awaybehind us. 

And now, as we walked, I learned some particulars of that terribledevice the Lewis gun; how that it could spout bullets at the rate ofsix hundred per minute; how, by varying pressures of the trigger, itcould be fired by single rounds or pour forth its entire magazine ina continuous, shattering volley and how it weighed no more thantwenty-six pounds. 

"And here, " said the Captain, opening a door and speaking in hispleasant voice, much as though he were showing me some rare flowers, "here is where they grow by the hundred, every week. "

And truly in hundreds they were, long rows of them standing veryneatly in racks, their walnut stocks heel by heel, their grim, bluemuzzles in long, serried ranks, very orderly and precise; andsomething in their very orderliness endowed them with a certainindividuality as it were. It almost seemed to me that they werewaiting, mustered and ready, for that hour of ferocious roar andtumult when their voice should be the voice of swift and terribledeath. Now as I gazed upon them, filled with these scarcely definablethoughts, I was startled by a sudden shattering crash near by, asound made up of many individual reports, and swinging about, Iespied a man seated upon a stool; a plump, middle-aged, family sortof man, who sat upon his low stool, his aproned knees set wide, asplump, middle-aged family men often do. As I watched, Paterfamiliassquinted along the sights of one of these guns and once again camethat shivering crash that is like nothing else I ever heard. Him Iapproached and humbly ventured an awed question or so, whereon hegraciously beckoned me nearer, vacated his stool, and motioning me tosit there, suggested I might try a shot at the target, a far disclighted by shaded electric bulbs. 

"She's fixed dead on!" he said, "and she's true--you can't miss. Aquick pull for single shots and a steady pressure for a volley. "

Hereupon I pressed the trigger, the gun stirred gently in its clamps, the air throbbed, and a stream of ten bullets (the testing number)plunged into the bull's-eye and all in the space of a moment. 

"There ain't a un'oly 'un of 'em all could say 'Hoch the Kaiser' withthem in his stomach, " said Paterfamilias thoughtfully, laying a handupon the respectable stomach beneath his apron, "it's a gun, thatis!" And a gun it most assuredly is. 

I would have tarried longer with Paterfamilias, for in his own way, he was as arresting as this terrible weapon--or nearly so--but theCaptain, gentle-voiced and serene as ever, suggested that mycompanions had a train to catch, wherefore I reluctantly turned away. But as I went, needs must I glance back at Paterfamilias, ascomfortable as ever where he sat, but with pudgy fingers on triggergrimly at work again, and from him to the long, orderly rows of gunsmustered in their orderly ranks, awaiting their hour. 

We walked through shops where belts and pulleys and wheels and cogsflapped and whirled and ground in ceaseless concert, shops wherefiles rasped and hammers rang, shops again where all seemed riot andconfusion at the first glance, but at a second showed itself orderedconfusion, as it were. And as we went, my Captain spoke of thehospital bay, of wards and dispensary (lately enlarged), of sisterand nurses and the grand work they were doing among the employeesother than attending to their bodily ills; and talking thus, hebrought me to the place, a place of exquisite order and tidiness, yetwhere nurses, blue-uniformed, in their white caps, cuffs and aprons, seemed to me the neatest of all. And here I was introduced to Sister, capable, strong, gentle-eyed, who told me something of her work--howmany came to her with wounds of soul as well as body; of griefsendured and wrongs suffered by reason of pitiful lack of knowledge;of how she was teaching them care and cleanliness of minds as wellas bodies, which is surely the most blessed heritage the unborngenerations may inherit. She told me of the patient bravery of thewomen, the chivalry of grimy men, whose hurts may wait that othersmay be treated first. So she talked and I listened until, perceivingthe Captain somewhat ostentatiously consulting his watch, I presentlyleft that quiet haven with its soft-treading ministering attendants. 

So we had tea and cigarettes, and when I eventually shook hands withmy Captain, I felt that I was parting with a friend. 

"And what struck you most particularly this afternoon?" enquired oneof my companions. 

"Well, " said I, "it was either the Lewis gun or Paterfamilias thegrim. "

IV

CLYDEBANK

Henceforth the word "Clydebank" will be associated in my mind withthe ceaseless ring and din of riveting-hammers, where, day by day, hour by hour, a new fleet is growing, destroyers and torpedo boatsalongside monstrous submarines--yonder looms the grim bulk ofSuper-dreadnought or battle cruiser or the slender shape of some hugeliner. 

And with these vast shapes about me, what wonder that I stood awedand silent at the stupendous sight. But, to my companion, a shortish, thick-set man, with a masterful air and a bowler hat very much overone eye, these marvels were an everyday affair; and now, duckingunder a steel hawser, he led me on, dodging moving trucks, steppingunconcernedly across the buffers of puffing engines, past titaniccranes that swung giant arms high in the air; on we went, steppingover chain cables, wire ropes, pulley-blocks and a thousand and oneother obstructions, on which I stumbled occasionally since my awedgaze was turned upwards. And as we walked amid these awesome shapes, he talked, I remember, of such futile things as--books. 

I beheld great ships well-nigh ready for launching; I stared up athuge structures towering aloft, a wild complexity of steel joists andgirders, yet, in whose seeming confusion, the eye could detectsomething of the mighty shape of the leviathan that was to be; evenas I looked, six feet or so of steel plating swung through the air, sank into place, and immediately I was deafened by the hellish racketof the riveting-hammers. 

". . . Nothing like a good book and a pipe to go with it!" said mycompanion between two bursts of hammering. 

"This is a huge ship!" said I, staring upward still. 

"H'm--fairish!" nodded my companion, scratching his square jaw andletting his knowledgeful eyes rove to and fro over the vast bulk thatloomed above us. 

"Have you built them much bigger, then?" I enquired. 

My companion nodded and proceeded to tell me certain amazing factswhich the riotous riveting-hammers promptly censored in the followingremarkable fashion. 

"You should have seen the rat-tat-tat. We built her in exactlynineteen months instead of two years and a half! Biggest battleshipafloat--two hundred feet longer than the rat-tat-tat--launched herlast rat-tat-tat--gone to rat-tat-tat-tat for her guns. "

"What size guns?" I shouted above the hammers. 

"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-inch!" he said, smiling grimly. 

"How much?" I yelled. 

"She has four rat-tat-tat-tat inch and twelve rattle-tattle inchbesides rat-tat-tat-tat!" he answered, nodding. 

"Really!" I roared, "if those guns are half as big as I think, theGermans--"

"The Germans--!" said he, and blew his nose. 

"How long did you say she was?" I hastened to ask as the hammers dieddown a little. 

"Well, over all she measured exactly rat-tat feet. She was so bigthat we had to pull down a corner of the building there, as you cansee. "

"And what's her name?"

"The rat-tat-tat, and she's the rattle-tattle of her class. "

"Are these hammers always quite so noisy, do you suppose?" Ienquired, a little hopelessly. 

"Oh, off and on!" he nodded. "Kick up a bit of a racket, don't they, but you get used to it in time; I could hear a pin drop. Look! sincewe've stood here they've got four more plates fixed--there goes thefifth. This way!"

Past the towering bows of future battleships he led me, over andunder more steel cables, until he paused to point towards an emptyslip near by. 

"That's where we built the _Lusitania_!" said he. "We thought she waspretty big then--but now--!" he settled his hat a little further overone eye with a knock on the crown. 

"Poor old _Lusitania_!" said I, "she'll never be forgotten. "

"Not while ships sail!" he answered, squaring his square jaw, "no, she'll never be forgotten, nor the murderers who ended her!"

"And they've struck a medal in commemoration, " said I. 

"Medal!" said he, and blew his nose louder than before. "I fancythey'll wish they could swallow that damn medal, one day. Poor old_Lusitania_! You lose any one aboard?"

"I had some American friends aboard, but they escaped, thankGod--others weren't so fortunate. "

"No, " he answered, turning away, "but America got quite angry--wrotea note, remember? Over there's one of the latest submarines. Germanycan't touch her for speed and size, and better than that, she's gotrat-tat--"

"I beg pardon?" I wailed, for the hammers were riotous again, "whathas she?"

"She's got rat-tat forward and rat-tat aft, surface speed rat-tat-tatknots, submerged rat-tat-tat, and then best of all she'srattle-tattle-tattle. Yes, hammers are a bit noisy! This way. Adestroyer yonder--new class--rat-tat feet longer than ordinary. Weexpect her to do rat-tat-tat knots and she'll mount rat-tat guns. There are two of them in the basin yonder having their enginesfitted, turbines to give rat-tat-tat horse power. But come on, we'dbetter be going or we shall lose the others of your party. "

"I should like to stay here a week, " said I, tripping over a steelhawser. 

"Say a month, " he added, steadying me deftly. "You might begin to seeall we've been doing in a month. We've built twenty-nine ships ofdifferent classes since the war began in this one yard, and we'regoing on building till the war's over--and after that too. And thisplace is only one of many. Which reminds me you're to go to anotheryard this afternoon--we'd better hurry after the rest of your partyor they'll be waiting for you. "

"I'm afraid they generally are!" I sighed, as I turned and followedmy conductor through yawning doorways (built to admit a giant, itseemed) into vast workshops whose lofty roofs were lost in haze. HereI saw huge turbines and engines of monstrous shape in course ofconstruction; I beheld mighty propellers, with boilers and furnacesbig as houses, whose proportions were eloquent of the colossal shipsthat were to be. But here indeed, all things were on a giganticscale; ponderous lathes were turning, mighty planing machines swungunceasing back and forth, while other monsters bored and cut throughsteel plate as it had been so much cardboard. 

"Good machines, these!" said my companion, patting one of thesemonsters with familiar hand, "all made in Britain!"

"Like the men!" I suggested. 

"The men, " said he. "Humph! They haven't been giving much troublelately--touch wood!"

"Perhaps they know Britain just now needs every man that is a man, " Isuggested, "and some one has said that a man can fight as hard athome here with a hammer as in France with a rifle. "

"Well, there's a lot of fighting going on here, " nodded my companion, "we're fighting night and day and we're fighting damned hard. And nowwe'd better hurry; your party will be cursing you in chorus. "

"I'm afraid it has before now!" said I. 

So we hurried on, past shops whence came the roar of machinery, past great basins wherein floated destroyers and torpedo boats, pastcraft of many kinds and fashions, ships built and building; on Ihastened, tripping over more cables, dodging from the buffers ofsnorting engines and deafened again by the fearsome din of theriveting-hammers, until I found my travelling companions assembledand ready to depart. Scrambling hastily into the nearest motor car Ishook hands with this shortish, broad-shouldered, square-jawed manand bared my head, for, so far as these great works were concerned, he was in very truth a superman. Thus I left him to oversee thebuilding of these mighty ships, which have been and will ever be themight of these small islands. 

But, even as I went speeding through dark streets, in my ears, risinghigh above the hum of our engine was the unceasing din, theremorseless ring and clash of the riveting-hammers. 

V

SHIPS IN MAKING

 Build me straight, O worthy Master! Staunch and strong, a goodly vessel, That shall laugh at all disaster And with wave and whirlwind wrestle! --_Longfellow. _

He was an old man with that indefinable courtliness of bearing thatis of a past generation; tall and spare he was, his white head boweda little by weight of years, but almost with my first glance I seemedto recognise him instinctively for that "worthy Master Builder ofgoodly vessels staunch and strong!" So the Master Builder I will callhim. 

He stood beside me at the window with one in the uniform of a navalcaptain, and we looked, all three of us, at that which few mightbehold unmoved. 

"She's a beauty!" said the Captain. "She's all speed and grace fromcutwater to sternpost. "

"I've been building ships for sixty-odd years and we never launched abetter!" said the Master Builder. 

As for me I was dumb. 

She lay within a stone's throw, a mighty vessel, huge of beam andlength, her superstructure towering proudly aloft, her massivearmoured sides sweeping up in noble curves, a Super-Dreadnoughtcomplete from trucks to keelson. Yacht-like she sat the water allbuoyant grace from lofty prow to tapering counter, and to me therewas something sublime in the grim and latent power, the strength andbeauty of her. 

"But she's not so very--big, is she?" enquired a voice behind me. 

The Captain stared; the Master Builder smiled. 

"Fairly!" he nodded. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I usually reckon the size of a ship from the number of herfunnels, and--"

"Ha!" exclaimed the Captain explosively. 

"Humph!" said the Master Builder gently. "After luncheon you shallmeasure her if you like, but now I think we will go and eat. "

During a most excellent luncheon the talk ranged from ships and booksand guns to submarines and seaplanes, with stories of battle andsudden death, tales of risk and hardship, of noble courage and heroicdeeds, so that I almost forgot to eat and was sorry when at last werose from table. 

Once outside I had the good fortune to find myself between theCaptain and the venerable figure of the Master Builder, in whosecompany I spent a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon. With them I stoodalongside this noble ship which, seen thus near, seemed mightier thanever. 

"Will she be fast?" I enquired. 

"Very fast--for a Dreadnought!" said the Captain. 

"And at top speed she'll show no bow wave to speak of, " added theveteran. "See how fine her lines are fore and aft. "

"And her gun power will be enormous!" said the Captain. 

Hard by I espied a solitary being, who stood, chin in hand, lost incontemplation of this large vessel. 

"Funnels or not, she's bigger than you thought?" I enquired of him. 

He glanced at me, shook his head, sighed, and took himself by thechin again. 

"Holy smoke!" said he. 

"And you have been building ships for sixty years?" I asked of thevenerable figure beside me. 

"And more!" he answered; "and my father built ships hereabouts solong ago as 1820, and his grandfather before him. "

"Back to the times of Nelson and Rodney and Anson, " said I, "greatseamen all, who fought great ships! What would they think of thisone, I wonder?"

"That she was a worthy successor, " replied the Master Builder, letting his eyes, so old and wise in ships, wander up and over themighty fabric before us. "Yes, " he nodded decisively, "she'sworthy--like the men who will fight her one of these days. "

"But our enemies and some of our friends rather thought we haddegenerated these latter days, " I suggested. 

"Ah, well!" said he very quietly, "they know better now, don't youthink?"

"Yes, " said I, and again, "Yes. "

"Slow starters always, " continued he musingly; "but the nation thatcan match us in staying power has yet to be born!"

So walking between these two I listened and looked and askedquestions, and of what I heard, and of what I saw I could write much;but for the censor I might tell of armour-belts of enormousthickness, of guns of stupendous calibre, of new methods of defenceagainst sneaking submarine and torpedo attack, and of devices new andstrange; but of these I may neither write nor speak, because of theaforesaid censor. Suffice it that as the sun sank, we came, allthree, to a jetty whereto a steamboat lay moored, on whose limiteddeck were numerous figures, divers of whom beckoned me on. 

So with hearty farewells, I stepped aboard the steamboat, whereuponshe snorted and fell suddenly a-quiver as she nosed out into thebroad stream while I stood to wave my hat in farewell. 

Side by side they stood, the Captain tall and broad and sailor-likein his blue and gold--a man of action, bold of eye, hearty of voice, free of gesture; the other, his silver hair agleam in the settingsun, a man wise with years, gentle and calm-eyed, my Master Builder. Thus, as the distance lengthened, I stood watching until presentlythey turned, side by side, and so were gone. 

Slowly we steamed down the river, a drab, unlovely waterway, but awonderful river none the less, whose banks teem with workers whereships are building--ships by the mile, by the league; ships of allshapes and of all sizes, ships of all sorts and for many differentpurposes. Here are great cargo boats growing hour by hour withliners great and small; here I saw mile on mile of battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines of strange design with torpedoboats of uncanny shape; tramp steamers, windjammers, squat colliersand squatter tugs, these last surely the ugliest craft that everwallowed in water. Mine layers were here with mine sweepers andhospital ships--a heterogeneous collection of well-nigh every kind ofship that floats. 

Some lay finished and ready for launching, others, just begun, wereonly a sketch--a hint of what soon would be a ship. 

On our right were ships, on our left were ships and more ships, along perspective; ships by the million tons--until my eyes grewa-weary of ships and I went below. 

Truly a wonderful river, this, surely in its way the most wonderfulriver eyes may see, a sight I shall never forget, a sight I shallalways associate with the stalwart figure of the Captain and thewhite hair and venerable form of the Master Builder as they stoodside by side to wave adieu. 

VI

THE BATTLE CRUISERS

Beneath the shadow of a mighty bridge I stepped into a very smartlaunch manned by sailors in overalls somewhat grimy, and, rising andfalling to the surge of the broad river, we held away for a destroyerthat lay grey and phantom-like, low, rakish, and with speed in everyline of her. As we drew near, her narrow deck looked to my untutoredeye a confused litter of guns, torpedo tubes, guy ropes, cables andwindlasses. Howbeit, I clambered aboard, and ducking under a guy ropeand avoiding sundry other obstructions, shook hands with hercommander, young, clear-eyed and cheery of mien, who presently led mepast a stumpy smokestack and up a perpendicular ladder to the bridgewhere, beneath a somewhat flimsy-looking structure, was the wheel, brass-bound and highly be-polished like all else about this crowdedcraft as, notably, the binnacle and certain brass-bound dials, on thefaces whereof one might read such words as: Ahead, Astern, Fast, Slow, etc. Forward of this was a platform, none too roomy, where wasa gun most carefully wrapped and swaddled in divers cloths, tarpaulins, etc. --wrapped up with as much tender care as if it hadbeen a baby, and delicate at that. But, as the commander casuallyinformed me, they had been out patrolling all night and "it had blowna little"--wherefore I surmised the cloths and tarpaulins aforesaid. 

"I should think, " I ventured, observing her sharp lines and slenderbuild, "I should think she would roll rather frightfully when it doesblow a little?"

"Well, she does a bit, " he admitted, "but not so much--Starboard!"said he, over his shoulder, to the bearded mariner at the wheel. "Take us round by the _Tiger_. "

"Aye, aye, sir!" retorted the bearded one as we began to slidethrough the water. 

"Yes, she's apt to roll a bit, perhaps, but she's not so bad, " hecontinued; "besides, you get used to it. "

Here he fell to scanning the haze ahead through a pair of binoculars, a haze through which, as we gathered speed, ghostly shapes began toloom, portentous shapes that grew and grew upon the sight, turret, superstructure and embattled mast; here a mighty battle cruiser, yonder a super-destroyer, one after another, quiet-seeming on thisautumn morning, and yet whose grim hulks held latent potentialitiesof destruction and death, as many of them have proved but lately. 

As we passed those silent, monstrous shapes, the Commander named themin turn, names which had been flashed round the earth not so longago, names which shall yet figure in the histories to come withGrenville's _Revenge_, Drake's _Golden Hind_, Blake's _Triumph_, Anson's _Centurion_, Nelson's _Victory_ and a score of otherdeathless names--glorious names that make one proud to be of therace that manned and fought them. 

Peacefully they rode at their moorings, the water lapping gently attheir steel sides, but, as we steamed past, on more than one of them, and especially the grim _Tiger_, I saw the marks of the Jutlandbattle in dinted plate, scarred funnel and superstructure, taken whenfor hours on end the dauntless six withstood the might of the Germanfleet. 

So, as we advanced past these battle-scarred ships, I felt a sense ofawe, that indefinable uplift of soul one is conscious of whentreading with soft and reverent foot the dim aisles of some cathedralhallowed by time and the dust of our noble dead. 

"This afternoon, " said the Commander, offering me his cigarette case, "they're going to show you over the _Warspite_--the German Navy havesunk her so repeatedly, you know. There, " he continued, noddingtowards a fleet of squat-looking vessels with stumpy masts, "thoseare the auxiliaries--coal and oil and that sort of thing--uglybeggars, but useful. How about a whisky and soda?"

Following him down the perpendicular ladder, he brought me aft to ahole in the deck, a small hole, a round hole into which he proceededto insert himself, first his long legs, then his broad shoulders, evidently by an artifice learned of much practice. Finally hisjauntily be-capped head vanished, and thereafter from the deeps belowhis cheery voice reached me. 

"I have whisky, sherry and rum--mind your head and take your choice!"

I descended into a narrow chamber divided by a longish table andflanked by berths with a chest of drawers beneath each. At thefurther end of this somewhat small and dim apartment andnortheasterly of the table was a small be-polished stove wherein afire burned; in a rack against a bulkhead were some half-dozenrifles, above our head was a rack for cutlasses, and upon the tablewas a decanter of whisky he had unearthed from some mysteriousrecess, and he was very full of apologies because the soda had runout. 

So we sat awhile and quaffed and talked, during which he showed me afavourite rifle, small of bore but of high power and exquisitebalance, at sight of which I straightway broke the tenth commandment. He also showed me a portrait of his wife (which I likewise admired), a picture taken by himself and by him developed in some dark nookaboard. 

After this, our whisky being duly despatched, we crawled into the airagain, to find we were approaching a certain jetty. And now, in thedelicate manoeuvre of bringing to and making fast, my companions, myself and all else were utterly forgotten, as with voice and hand heissued order on order until, gently as a nesting bird, the destroyercame to her berth and was made fast. Hereupon, having shaken handsall round, he handed us over to other naval men as cheery as he, whoin due season brought us to the depôt ship, where luncheon awaitedus. 

I have dined in many places and have eaten with many different folk, but never have I enjoyed a meal more than this, perhaps because ofthe padre who presided at my end of the table. A manly cleric this, bright-eyed, resolute of jaw but humorous of mouth, whose whitechoker did but seem to offset the virility of him. A man, I judged, who preached little and did much--a sailor's padre in very truth. 

He told me how, but for an accident, he would have sailed withAdmiral Cradock on his last, ill-fated cruise, where so many diedthat Right and Justice might endure. 

"Poor chaps!" said I. 

"Yes, " said he, gently, "and yet it is surely a noble thing to--diegreatly!"

And surely, surely for all those who in cause so just have met Deathunflinching and unafraid, who have taken hold upon that which we callLife and carried it through and beyond the portals of Death into asphere of nobler and greater living--surely to such as these strongsouls the Empire they served so nobly and loved so truly will oneday enshrine them, their memory and deeds, on the brightest, mostglorious page of her history, which shall be a monument more enduringthan brass or stone, a monument that shall never pass away. 

So we talked of ships and the sea and of men until, aware that thecompany had risen, we rose also, and donning hats and coats, setforth, talking still. Together we paced beside docks and along piersthat stretched away by the mile, massive structures of granite andconcrete, which had only come into being, so he told me, since thewar. 

Side by side we ascended the broad gangway, and side by side we setfoot upon that battle-scarred deck whose timbers, here and there, showed the whiter patches of newer wood. Here he turned to give mehis hand, after first writing down name and address, and, with mutualwishes of meeting again, went to his duties and left me to thewonders of this great ship. 

Crossing the broad deck, more spacious it seemed than an ocean liner, I came where my travelling companions were grouped about a grimmemorial of the Jutland battle, a huge projectile that had struck oneof the after turrets, in the doing of which it had transformed itselfinto a great, convoluted disc, and was now mounted as a memento ofthat tremendous day. 

And here it was I became acquainted with my Midshipmite, who lookedlike an angel of sixteen, bore himself like a veteran, and spoke(when his shyness had worn off a little) like a British fighting man. 

To him I preferred the request that he would pilot me over this greatvessel, which he (blushing a little) very readily agreed to do. Thereafter, in his wake, I ascended stairways, climbed ladders, wriggled through narrow spaces, writhed round awkward corners, up andever up. 

"It's rather awkward, I'm afraid, sir, " said he in his gentle voice, hanging from an iron ladder with one hand and a foot, the better toaddress me. "You see, we never bring visitors this way as a rule--"

"Good!" said I, crushing my hat on firmer. "The unbeaten track forme--lead on!"

Onward and upward he led until all at once we reached a narrowplatform, railed round and hung about with plaited rope screens whichhe called splinter-mats, over which I had a view of land and water, of ships and basins, of miles of causeways and piers, none of whichhad been in existence before the war. And immediately below me, far, far down, was the broad white sweep of deck, with the forward turretswhere were housed the great guns whose grim muzzles stared patientlyupwards, nuzzling the air almost as though scenting another battle. 

And standing in this coign of vantage, in my mind's eye I saw thismighty vessel as she had been, the heave of the fathomless sea below, the whirling battle-smoke about her, the air full of the crashingthunder of her guns as she quivered 'neath their discharge. I heardthe humming drone of shells coming from afar, a hum that grew to awail--a shriek--and the sickening crash as they smote her or threw upgreat waterspouts high as her lofty fighting-tops; I seemed to hearthrough it all the ring of electric bells from the variousfire-controls, and voices calm and all unshaken by the hellish dinuttering commands down the many speaking-tubes. 

"And you, " said I, turning to the youthful figure beside me, "youwere in the battle?"

He blushingly admitted that he was. 

"And how did you feel?"

He wrinkled his smooth brow and laughed a little shyly. 

"Really I--I hardly know, sir. "

I asked him if at such times one was not inclined to feel a trifleshaken, a little nervous, or, might one say, afraid?

"Yes, sir, " he agreed politely, "I suppose so--only, you see, we wereall too jolly busy to think about it!"

"Oh!" said I, taking out a cigarette, "too busy! Of course! I see!And where is the Captain during action, as a rule?"

"As a matter of fact he stood--just where you are, sir. Stood therethe whole six hours it was hottest. "

"Here!" I exclaimed. "But it is quite exposed. "

My Midshipmite, being a hardy veteran in world-shaking naval battles, permitted himself to smile. 

"But, you see, sir, " he gently explained, "it's really far safer outhere than being shut up in a gun-turret or--or down below, on accountof er--er--you understand, sir?"

"Oh, quite!" said I, and thereafter thought awhile, and, receivinghis ready permission, lighted my cigarette. "I think, " said I, as weprepared to descend from our lofty perch, "I'm sure it'sjust--er--that kind of thing that brought one Francis Drake out of sovery many tight corners. By the way--do you smoke?"

My Midshipmite blushingly confessed he did, and helped himself frommy case with self-conscious fingers. 

Reaching the main deck in due season, I found I had contrived to missthe Chief Gunner's lecture on the great guns, whereupon who soagitated and bitterly apologetic as my Midshipmite, who there andthen ushered me hastily down more awkward stairs and through narrowopenings into a place of glistening, gleaming polish and furbishmentwhere, beside the shining breech of a monster gun, muscular armnegligently leaning thereon, stood a round-headed, broad-shoulderedman, he the presiding genius of this (as I afterwards found) mostsacred place. 

His lecture was ended and he was addressing a few well-chosen closingremarks in slightly bored fashion (he had showed off his ponderousplaythings to divers kings, potentates and bigwigs at home andabroad, I learned) when I, though properly awed by the gun but moreespecially by the gunner, ventured to suggest that a gun that hadbeen through three engagements and had been fired so frequently mustnecessarily show some signs of wear. The gunner glanced at me, and Ishall never forget that look. With his eyes on mine, he touched alever in negligent fashion, whereon silently the great breech slippedaway with a hiss and whistle of air, and with his gaze always fixedhe suggested I might glance down the bore. 

Obediently I stooped, whereon he spake on this wise:

"If you cast your heyes to the right abaft the breech you'll observeslight darkening of riflin's. Now glancin' t'left of piece you'llper-ceive slight darkening of riflin's. Now casting your heyes rightforrard you'll re-mark slight roughening of riflin's towards muzzleof piece and--there y'are, sir. One hundred and twenty-seven timesshe's been fired by my 'and and good for as many more--both of us. Arternoon, gentlemen, and--thank ye!"

Saying which he touched a lever in the same negligent fashion, themighty breech block slid back into place, and I walked forth humblyinto the outer air. 

Here I took leave of my Midshipmite, who stood among a crowd of hisfellows to watch me down the gangplank, and I followed whither I wasled very full of thought, as well I might be, until rousing, I foundmyself on the deck of that famous _Warspite_, which our foes are socomfortably certain lies a shattered wreck off Jutland. Here Ipresently fell into discourse with a tall lieutenant, with whom Iwent alow and aloft; he showed me cockpit, infirmary and engine-room;he showed me the wonder of her steering apparatus, and pointed to thesmall hand-wheel in the bowels of this huge ship whereby she had beensteered limping into port. He directed my gaze also to divers vastshell holes and rents in her steel sides, now very neatly mended bysteel plates held in place by many large bolts. Wherever we went weresailors, by the hundred it seemed, and yet I was struck by the sizeand airy spaciousness between decks. 

"The strange thing about the Hun, " said my companion, as we mountedupward again, "is that he is so amazingly accurate with his big guns. Anyway, as we steamed into range he registered direct hits time aftertime, and his misses were so close the spray was flying all over us. Yes, Fritz is wonderfully accurate, but"--here my companion paused toflick some dust from his braided cuff--"but when we began to knockhim about a bit it was funny how it rattled him--quite funny, youknow. His shots got wider and wider, until they were falling prettywell a mile wide--very funny!" and the lieutenant smiled dreamily. "Fritz will shoot magnificently if you only won't shoot back. Butreally I don't blame him for thinking he'd sunk us; you see, therewere six of 'em potting away at us at one time--couldn't see us forspray--"

"And how did you feel just then?" I enquired. 

"Oh, rotten! You see I'd jammed my finger in some tackle for onething, and just then the light failed us. We'd have bagged the lotif the light had held a little longer. But next time--who knows? Carefor a cup of tea?"

"Thanks!" I answered. "But where are the others?"

"Oh, by Jove! I fancy your party's gone--I'll see!"

This proving indeed the case, I perforce took my leave, and with amidshipman to guide me, presently stepped aboard a boat which bore usback beneath the shadow of that mighty bridge stark against theevening sky. 

Riding citywards through the deepening twilight I bethought me of theMidshipmite who, amid the roar and tumult of grim battle, had been"too busy" to be afraid; of the round-headed gunner who, like hisgun, was ready and eager for more, and of the tall lieutenant who, with death in many awful shapes shrieking and crashing about him, felt "rotten" by reason of a bruised finger and failing light. 

And hereupon I felt proud that I, too, was a Briton, of the samebreed as these mighty ships and the splendid fellows who manthem--these Keepers of the Seas, who in battle as in tempest do theirduty unseen, unheard, because it is their duty. 

Therefore, all who are so blest as to live within these isles takecomfort and courage from this--that despite raging tempest anddesperate battle, we, trusting in the justice of our cause, in theseiron men and mighty ships, may rest secure, since truly worthy arethese, both ships and men, of the glorious traditions of the world'smost glorious navy. 

But, as they do their duty by Britain and the Empire, let it be ourinestimable privilege as fellow Britons to do our duty as nobly bothto the Empire and--to them. 

VII

A HOSPITAL

The departure platform of a great station (for such as have eyes tosee) is always a sad place, but nowadays it is a place of tragedy. 

He was tall and thin--a boyish figure--and his khaki-clad arm wasclose about her slender form. The hour was early and their cornerbleak and deserted, thus few were by to heed his stiff-lipped, agonised smile and the passionate clasp of her hands, or to hear herheartbreaking sobs and his brave words of comfort; and I, shiveringin the early morning wind, hasted on, awed by a grief that made thegrey world greyer. 

Very soon London was behind us, and we were whirling through acountryside wreathed in mist wherein I seemed to see a girl'stear-wet cheeks and a boy's lips that smiled so valiantly for alltheir pitiful quiver; thus I answered my companion somewhat at randomand the waiter's proffer of breakfast was an insult. And, as I staredout at misty trees and hedgerow I began as it were to sense agrimness in the very air--the million-sided tragedy of war; behind methe weeping girl, before me and looming nearer with every mile, theSomme battle-front. 

At a table hard by a group of clear-eyed subalterns were chatting andlaughing over breakfast, and in their merriment I, too, rejoiced. Yetthe grimness was with me still as we rocked and swayed through thewreathing mist. 

But trains, even on a foggy morning, have a way of getting there atlast, so, in due season, were docks and more docks, with the funnelsof ships, and beyond these misty shapes upon a misty sea, the gauntoutlines of destroyers that were to convoy us Francewards. Hereuponmy companion, K. , a hardened traveller, inured to customs, passportsand the like noxious things, led me through a jostling throng, hislong legs striding rapidly when they found occasion, past rank uponrank of soldiers returning to duty, very neat and orderly, andlooking, I thought, a little grim. 

Presently the warps were cast off and very soon we were in the liftand roll of the Channel; the white cliffs slowly faded, the windfreshened, and I, observing that every one had donned life belts, forthwith girded on one of the clumsy contrivances also. 

In mid-channel it blew hard and the destroyers seemed to be makingheavy weather of it, now lost in spray, now showing a glisteningheight of freeboard, and, as I watched, remembering why they werethere, my cumbrous life belt grew suddenly very comfortable. 

Came a growing density on the horizon, a blue streak that slowly andlittle by little grew into roofs, chimneys, docks and shipping, andFrance was before us, and it was with almost reverent hands that Ilaid aside my clumsy cork jacket and was presently on French soil. And yet, except for a few chattering porters, the air rang with goodEnglish voices hailing each other in cheery greetings, and khaki waseverywhere. But now, as I followed my companion's long legs pastthese serried, dun-coloured ranks, it seemed to me that they heldthemselves straighter and looked a little more grim even than theyhad done in England. 

I stood, lost in the busy scene before me, when, hearing K. 's voice, I turned to be introduced to Captain R. , tall, bright-eyed, immaculate, and very much master of himself and circumstances itseemed, for, despite crowded customs office, he whisked us throughand thence before sundry officials, who glared at me and my passport, signed, stamped, returned it and permitted me to go. 

After luncheon we drove to a great base hospital where I wasintroduced to the Colonel-Surgeon in charge, a quiet man, who tookus readily under his able guidance. And indeed a huge place was this, a place for me of awe and wonder, the more so as I learned that thegreater part of it had come into being within one short year. 

It lies beside the sea, this hospital, where clean winds blow, itsneat roadways are bordered by green lawns and flanked by long, lowbuildings that reach away in far perspective, buildings of corrugatediron, of wood and asbestos, a very city, but one where there is noriot and rush of traffic, truly a city of peace and broodingquietude. 

And as I looked upon this silent city, my awe grew, for the Colonel, in his gentle voice, spoke of death and wounds, of shell-shock, nerve-wrack and insanity; but he told also of wonderful cures, ofmiracles performed on those that should have died, and of reason andsanity won back. 

"And you?" I questioned, "have you done many such wonders?"

"Few!" he answered, and sighed. "You see, my duties now are chieflyadministrative, " and he seemed gently grieved that it should be so. 

He brought us into wards, long, airy and many-windowed, places ofexquisite neatness and order, where calm-faced sisters were busied, and smart, soft-treading orderlies came and went. Here in white cotslay many bandaged forms, some who, propped on pillows, watched usbright-eyed and nodded in cheery greeting; others who lay soominously still. 

But as I passed between the long rows of cots, I was struck with thelook of utter peace and content on so many of the faces and wondered, until, remembering the hell whence they had so lately come, I thoughtI understood. Thus, bethinking me of how these dire hurts had beencome by, I took off my hat, and trod between these beds of silentsuffering as softly as I could, for these men had surely come "out ofgreat tribulation. "

In another ward I saw numbers of German wounded, most of thembearded; many there were who seemed weakly and undersized, and amongthem were many grey heads, a very motley company. These, the Colonelinformed us, received precisely the same treatment as our ownwounded, even to tobacco and cigarettes. 

We followed our soft-voiced conductor through many other wards wherehe showed us strange and wondrous devices in splints; he halted us byhanging beds of weird shape and cots that swung on pulleys; hedescanted on wounds to flesh and bone and brain, of lives snatchedfrom the grip of Death by the marvels of up-to-date surgery, and as Ilistened to his pleasant voice I sensed much of the grim wonders heleft untold. We visited X-ray rooms and operating theatre againstwhose walls were glass cases filled with a multitudinous array ofinstruments for the saving of life, and here it was I learned that incertain cases, a chisel, properly handled, was a far more delicatetool than the finest saw. 

"A wonderful place, " said I for the hundredth time as we stepped outupon a trim, green lawn. The Colonel-Surgeon smiled. 

"It took some planning, " he admitted, "a little while ago it was asandy wilderness. "

"But these lawns?" I demurred. 

"Came to me of their own accord, " he answered. "At least, the seeddid, washed ashore from a wreck, so I had it planted and it has donerather well. Now, what else can I show you? It would take all theafternoon to visit every ward, and they are all much alike--but thereis the mad ward if you'd care to see that? This way. "

A strange place, this, divided into compartments or cubicles wherewere many patients in the familiar blue overalls, most of whom roseand stood at attention as we entered. Tall, soldierly figures theyseemed, and yet with an indefinable something in their looks--avagueness of gaze, a loose-lipped, too-ready smile, a vacancy ofexpression. Some there were who scowled sullenly enough, others whosat crouched apart, solitary souls, who, I learned, felt themselvesoutcast; others again crouched in corners haunted by the dread of apursuing vengeance always at hand. 

One such the Colonel accosted, asking what was wrong. The man lookedup, looked down and muttered unintelligibly, whereupon the Sisterspoke. 

"He believes that every one thinks him a spy, " she explained, andtouched the man's bowed head with a hand as gentle as her voice. 

"Shell-shock is a strange thing, " said the Colonel-Surgeon, "andaffects men in many extraordinary ways, but seldom permanently. "

"You mean that those poor fellows will recover?" I asked. 

"Quite ninety per cent, " he answered in his quiet, assured voice. 

I was shown over laundries complete in every detail; I walked throughclothing stores where, in a single day, six hundred men had beenequipped from head to foot; I beheld large machines for thesterilisation of garments foul with the grime of battle and otherthings. 

Truly, here, within the hospital that had grown, mushroom-like, within the wild, was everything for the alleviation of hurts andsuffering more awful than our fighting ancestors ever had to endure. Presently I left this place, but now, although a clean, fresh windblew and the setting sun peeped out, the world somehow seemed agrimmer place than ever. 

In the Dark Ages, humanity endured much of sin and shame andsuffering, but never such as in this age of Reason and Culture. Thissame earth has known evils of every kind, has heard the screams ofoutraged innocence, the groan of tortured flesh, and has reddenedbeneath the heel of Tyranny; this same sun has seen the smoke andravishment of cities and been darkened by the hateful mists ofwar--but never such a war as this of cultured barbarity with all itsnew devilishness. Shell-shock and insanity, poison gas and slowstrangulation, liquid fire and poison shells. Rape, Murder, Robbery, Piracy, Slavery--each and every crime is here--never has humanityendured all these horrors together until now. 

But remembering by whose will these evils have been loosed upon theworld, remembering the innocent blood, the bitter tears, the agony ofsoul and heartbreak, I am persuaded that Retribution must follow assure as to-morrow's dawn. The evil that men do lives after them andlives on for ever. 

Should they, who have worked for and planned this misery, escape theephemeral justice of man, there is yet the inexorable tribunal of theHereafter, which no transgressor, small or great, humble or mighty, may in any wise escape. 

VIII

THE GUNS

A fine, brisk morning; a long, tree-bordered road dappled withfugitive sun-beams, making a glory of puddles that leapt inshimmering spray beneath our flying wheels. A long, straight roadthat ran on and on unswerving, uphill and down, beneath tall, straight trees that flitted past in never-ending procession, andbeyond these a rolling, desolate countryside of blue hills and duskywoods; and in the air from beyond this wide horizon a sound that roseabove the wind gusts and the noise of our going, a faint whisper thatseemed in the air close about us and yet to be of the vaguedistances, a whisper of sound, a stammering murmur, now rising, nowfalling, but never quite lost. 

In rain-sodden fields to right and left were many figures bent indiligent labour, men in weatherworn, grey-blue uniforms andknee-boots, while on the roadside were men who lounged, or satsmoking cigarettes, rifle across knees and wicked-looking bayonetsagleam, wherefore these many German prisoners toiled with theunremitting diligence aforesaid. 

The road surface improving somewhat we went at speed and, as welurched and swayed, the long, straight road grew less deserted. Hereand there transport lorries by ones and twos, then whole convoysdrawn up beside the road, often axle deep in mud, or lumberingheavily onwards; and ever as we went that ominous, stammering murmurbeyond the horizon grew louder and more distinct. 

On we went, through scattered villages alive with khaki-clad figureswith morions cocked at every conceivable angle, past leafy lanesbright with the wink of long bayonets; through country towns, whosewide squares and narrow, old-world streets rang with the orderedtramp of feet, the stamp of horses and rumble of gun wheels, whereruddy English faces turned to stare and broad khaki backs swungeasily beneath their many accoutrements. And in street and square andby-street, always and ever was that murmurous stammer of sound moreominous and threatening, yet which nobody seemed to heed--not evenK. , my companion, who puffed his cigarette and "was glad it hadstopped raining. "

So, picking our way through streets a-throng with British faces, dodging guns and limbers, wagons and carts of all descriptions, wecame out upon the open road again. And now, there being no surface atall to speak of, we perforce went slow, and I watched where, just infront, a string of lorries lumbered heavily along, pitching androlling very much like boats in a choppy sea. 

Presently we halted to let a column go by, officers a-horse anda-foot with the long files behind, but all alike splashed andspattered with mud. Men, these, who carried their rifles anyhow, whotramped along, rank upon rank, weary men, who showed among them hereand there grim evidence of battle--rain-sodden men with hair thatclung to muddy brows beneath the sloping brims of muddy helmets; menwho tramped ankle-deep in mud and who sang and whistled blithe asbirds. So they splashed wearily through the mud, upborne in theirfatigue by that indomitable spirit that has always made the Britonthe fighting man he is. 

At second speed we toiled along again behind the lorries who weremaking as bad weather of it as ever, when all at once I caught mybreath, hearkening to the far, faint skirling of Highland bagpipes, and, leaning from the car, saw before us a company of Highlanders, their mud-splashed knees a-swing together, their khaki kilts swayingin rhythm, their long bayonets a-twinkle, while down the wind camethe regular tramp of their feet and the wild, frenzied wailing oftheir pipes. Soon we were up with them, bronzed, stalwart figures, grim fighters from muddy spatter-dashes to steel helmets, beneathwhich eyes turned to stare at us--eyes blue and merry, eyes dark andsombre--as they swung along to the lilting music of the pipes. 

At the rear the stretcher-bearers marched, the rolled-up stretchersupon their shoulders; but even so, by various dark stains and marksupon that dingy canvas, I knew that here was a company that had doneand endured much. Close by me was a man whose hairy knee was blackwith dried blood--to him I tentatively proffered my cigarette case. 

"Wull ye hae one the noo?" I questioned. For a moment he eyed me atrifle dour and askance, then he smiled (a grave Scots smile). 

"Thank ye, I wull that!" said he, and extracted the cigarette withmuddy fingers. 

"Ye'll hae a sore leg, I'm thinking!" said I. 

"Ou aye, " he admitted with the same grave smile, "but it's no saemuckle as a' that--juist a wee bit skelpit I--"

Our car moved forward, gathered speed, and we bumped and swayed onour way; the bagpipes shrieked and wailed, grew plaintively soft, andwere drowned and lost in that other sound which was a murmur nolonger, but a rolling, distant thunder, with occasional moments ofsilence. 

"Ah, the guns at last!" said I. 

"Yes, " nodded K. , lighting another cigarette, "I've been listening tothem for the last hour. "

Here my friend F. , who happened to be the Intelligence Officer incharge, leaned forward to say:

"I'm afraid we can't get into Beaumont Hamel, the Boches are strafingit rather, this morning, but we'll go as near as we can get, and thenon to what was La Boiselle. We shall leave the car soon, so betterget into your tin hats. " Forthwith I buckled on one of the morions wehad brought for the purpose and very uncomfortable I found it. Havingmade it fairly secure, I turned, grinning furtively, to behold K. 'sclassic features crowned with his outlandish-seeming headgear, andpresently caught him grinning furtively at mine. 

"They're not so heavy as I expected, " said I. 

"About half a pound, " he suggested. 

Pulling up at a shell-shattered village we left the car and trudgedalong a shell-torn road, along a battered and rusty railway line, andpresently struck into a desolate waste intersected by sparsehedgerows and with here and there desolate, leafless trees, many ofwhich, in shattered trunk and broken bough, showed grim traces ofwhat had been; and ever as we advanced these ugly scars grew morefrequent, and we were continually dodging sullen pools that were thework of bursting shells. And then it began to rain again. 

On we went, splashing through puddles, slipping in mud, and ever aswe went my boots and my uncomfortable helmet grew heavier andheavier, while in the heaven above, in the earth below and in the airabout us was the quiver and thunder of unseen guns. As we stumbledthrough the muddy desolation I beheld wretched hovels whereinkhaki-clad forms moved, and from one of these damp and dismalstructures a merry whistling issued, with hoarse laughter. 

On we tramped, through rain and mud, which, like my helmet, seemed togrow momentarily heavier. 

"K. , " said I, as he floundered into a shell hole, "about how heavydid you say these helmets were?"

"About a pound!" said he, fierce-eyed. "Confound the mud!"

Away to our left and high in air a puff of smoke appeared, apearl-grey, fleecy cloud, and as I, unsuspecting, watched it writheinto fantastic shapes, my ears were smitten with a deafening report, and instinctively I ducked. 

"Shrapnel!" said F. , waving his hand in airy introduction. "They'researching the road yonder I expect--ah, there goes another! Yes, they're trying the road yonder--but here's the trench--in with you!"

I am free to confess that I entered that trench precipitately--sohurriedly, in fact, that my helmet fell off, and, as I replaced it, Iwas not sorry to see that this trench was very deep and narrow. As weprogressed, very slowly by reason of clinging mud, F. Informed usthat this trench had been our old front line before we took BeaumontHamel; and I noticed many things, as, clips of cartridges, unexplodedbombs, Lewis-gun magazines, parts of a broken machine gun, andvarious odds and ends of accoutrements. In some places this trenchhad fallen in because of rain and other things and was almostimpassable, wherefore, after much floundering and splashing, F. Suggested we should climb out again, which we did forthwith, verymoist and muddy. 

And thus at last I looked at that wide stretch of country acrosswhich our men had advanced unshaken and undismayed, through a hellthe like of which the world had never known before; and, as I stoodthere, I could almost see those long, advancing waves of khaki-cladfigures, their ranks swept by the fire of countless rifles andmachine guns, pounded by high explosives, blasted by witheringshrapnel, lost in the swirling death-mist of poison gas--heroic rankswhich, rent asunder, shattered, torn, yet swung steadily on throughsmoke and flame, unflinching and unafraid. As if to make the picturemore real, came the thunderous crash of a shell behind us, but thistime I forgot to duck. 

Far in front of us I saw a huge puff of smoke, and as it thinned outbeheld clouds of earth and broken beams that seemed to hang suspendeda moment ere they fell and vanished. After a moment came another puffof smoke further to our right, and beyond this another, and again, beyond this, another. 

"A battery of heavies, " said F. 

Even as he spoke the four puffs burst forth again and upon exactlythe same ground. 

At this juncture a head appeared over the parapet behind us and aftersome talk with F. , came one who tendered us a pair of binoculars, bywhose aid I made out the British new line of trenches which had oncebeen German. So I stood, dry-mouthed, to watch the burst of thosehuge shells exploding upon our British line. Fascinated, I stareduntil F. 's hand on my arm aroused me, and returning the glasses witha hazy word of thanks I followed my companions, though often turningto watch the shooting which now I thought much too good. 

And now we were traversing the great battlefield where, not longsince, so many of our bravest had fallen that Britain might still beBritain. Even yet, upon its torn and trampled surface I could readsomething of the fight--here a broken shoulder belt, there acartridge pouch, yonder a stained and tattered coat, while everywherelay bombs, English and German. 

"If you want to see La Boiselle properly we must hurry!" said F. , andoff he went at the double with K. 's long legs striding beside him, but, as for me, I must needs turn for one last look where thosedeadly smoke puffs came and went with such awful regularity. 

The rain had stopped, but it was three damp and mud-spatteredwretches who clambered back into the waiting car. 

"K. , " said I, as we removed our cumbrous headgear, "about how much doyou suppose these things weigh?"

"Fully a ton!" he answered, jerking his cap over his eyes andscowlingly accepting a cigarette. 

Very soon the shattered village was far behind and we were threadinga devious course between huge steam-tractors, guns, motor-lorries andmore guns. We passed soldiers a-horse and a-foot and long strings ofambulance cars; to right and left of the road were artillery parksand great camps, that stretched away into the distance. Here alsowere vast numbers of the ubiquitous motor-lorry with manythree-wheeled tractors for the big guns. We sped past hundreds ofhorses picketed in long lines; past countless tents smeared crazilyin various coloured paints; past huts little and huts big; pastswamps knee-deep in mud where muddy men were taking down or settingup other tents. On we sped through all the confused order of a mightyarmy, until, chancing to raise my eyes aloft, I beheld a hugeballoon, which, as I watched, mounted up and up into the air. 

"One of our sausages!" said F. , gloved hand waving. "Plenty of 'emround here; see, there's another in that cloud, and beyond itanother. "

So for a while I rode with my eyes turned upwards, and thus Ipresently saw far ahead many aeroplanes that flew in strange, zigzagfashion, now swooping low, now climbing high, now twisting andturning giddily. 

"Some of our 'planes under fire!" said F. , "you can see the shrapnelbursting all around 'em--there's the smoke--we call 'em woolly bears. Won't see any Boche 'planes, though--rather not!"

Amidst all these wonders and marvels our fleet car sped on, joltingand lurching violently over ruts, pot-holes and the like until wecame to a part of the road where many men were engaged with pick andshovel; and here, on either side of the highway, I noticed manygrim-looking heaps and mounds--ugly, shapeless dumps, depressing intheir very hideousness. Beside one such unlovely dump our car pulledup, and F. , gloved finger pointing, announced:

"The Church of La Boiselle. That heap you see yonder was once theMairie, and beyond, the schoolhouse. The others were houses andcottages. Oh, La Boiselle was quite a pretty place once. We get outhere to visit the guns--this way. "

Obediently I followed whither he led, nothing speaking, for surelyhere was matter beyond words. Leaving the road, we floundered overwhat seemed like ash heaps, but which had once been German trenchesfaced and reinforced by concrete and steel plates. Many of these lastlay here and there, awfully bent and twisted, but of trenches I sawnone save a few yards here and there half filled with indescribabledébris. It was, indeed, a place of horror--a frightful desolationbeyond all words. Everywhere about us were signs of dreadfuldeath--they came to one in the very air, in lowering heaven andtortured earth. Far as the eye could reach the ground was pitted withgreat shell holes, so close that they broke into one another andformed horrid pools full of shapeless things within the slime. 

Across this hellish waste I went cautiously by reason of torn andtwisted tangles of German barbed wire, of hand grenades and hugeshells, of broken and rusty iron and steel that once were deadlymachine guns. As I picked my way among all this flotsam, I turned totake up a bayonet, slipped in the slime and sank to my waist in ashell hole--even then I didn't touch bottom, but scrambled out, allgrey mud from waist down--but I had the bayonet. 

It was in this woeful state that I shook hands with the Major of thebattery. And as we stood upon that awful waste, he chattered, Iremember, of books. Then, side by side, we came to the battery--fourmighty howitzers, that crashed and roared and shook the very earthwith each discharge, and whose shells roared through the air with therush of a dozen express trains. 

Following the Major's directing finger, I fixed my gaze some distanceabove the muzzle of the nearest gun and, marvel of marvels, beheldthat dire messenger of death and destruction rush forth, soaring, upon its way, up and up, until it was lost in cloud. Time after timeI saw the huge shells leap skywards and vanish on their long journey, and stood thus lost in wonder, and as I watched I could not butremark on the speed and dexterity with which the crews handled thesemonstrous engines. 

"Yes, " nodded the Major, "strange thing is that a year ago they_weren't_, you know--guns weren't in existence and the men weren'tgunners--clerks an' all that sort of thing, you know--civilians, what?"

"They're pretty good gunners now--judging by effect!" said I, noddingtowards the abomination of desolation that had once been a village. 

"Rather!" nodded the Major, cheerily, "used to think it took threelong years to make a gunner once--do it in six short months now!Pretty good going for old England, what? How about a cup of tea in mydugout?"

But evening was approaching, and having far to go we had perforce torefuse his hospitality and bid him a reluctant good-by. 

"Don't forget to take a peep at the mine craters, " said he, andwaving a cheery adieu, vanished into his dugout. 

Ten minutes' walk, along the road, and before us rose a jagged mount, and beyond it another, uncanny hills, seared and cracked andsinister, up whose steep slopes I scrambled and into whose yawningdepths I gazed in awestruck wonder; so deep, so wide and huge ofcircumference, it seemed rather the result of some titanic convulsionof nature than the handiwork of man. 

I could imagine the cataclysmic roar of the explosion, the smoke andflame of the mighty upheaval and war found for me yet another horroras I turned and descended the precipitous slope. Now, as I went, Istumbled over a small mound, then halted all at once, for at one endof this was a very small cross, rudely constructed and painted white, and tacked to this a strip of lettered tin, bearing a name andnumber, and beneath these the words, "One of the best. " So I took offmy hat and stood awhile beside that lonely mound of muddy earth ere Iwent my way. 

Slowly our car lurched onward through the waste, and presently oneither side the way I saw other such mounds and crosses, by twos andthrees, by fifties, by hundreds, in long rows beyond count. Andlooking around me on this dreary desolation I knew that one day(since nothing dies) upon this place of horror grass would grow andflowers bloom again; along this now desolate and deserted road peoplewould come by the thousand; these humble crosses and mounds of muddyearth would become to all Britons a holy place where so many of ourbest and bravest lie, who, undismayed, have passed through theportals of Death into the fuller, greater, nobler living. 

Full of such thoughts I turned for one last look, and then I saw thatthe setting sun had turned each one of these humble little crossesinto things of shining glory. 

IX

A TRAINING CAMP

The great training camp lay, a rain-lashed wilderness of windy levelsand bleak, sandy hills, range upon range, far as the eye could see, with never a living thing to break the monotony. But presently, asour car lurched and splashed upon its way, there rose a sound thatgrew and grew, the awesome sound of countless marching feet. 

On they came, these marching men, until we could see them by thehundred, by the thousand, their serried ranks stretching away andaway until they were lost in distance. Scots were here, Lowland andHighland; English and Irish were here, with bronzed New Zealanders, adventurous Canadians and hardy Australians; men, these, who had comejoyfully across half the world to fight, and, if need be, die forthose ideals which have made the Empire assuredly the greatest andmightiest this world has ever known. And as I listened to therhythmic tramp of these countless feet, it seemed like the voice ofthis vast Empire proclaiming to the world that Wrong and Injusticemust cease among the nations; that man, after all, despite all the"Frightfulness" that warped intelligence may conceive, is yetfaithful to the highest in him, faithful to that deathless, purposeful determination that Right shall endure, the abiding beliefof which has brought him through the dark ages, through blood andmisery and shame, on his progress ever upward. 

So, while these men of the Empire tramped past through blinding rainand wind, our car stopped before a row of low-lying wooden buildings, whence presently issued a tall man in rain-sodden trench cap andburberry, who looked at me with a pair of very dark, bright eyes andgripped my hand in hearty clasp. 

He was apologetic because of the rain, since, as he informed us, hehad just ordered all men to their quarters, and thus I should seenothing doing in the training line; nevertheless he cheerfullyoffered to show us over the camp, despite mud and wind and rain, andto explain things as fully as he could; whereupon we as cheerfullyaccepted. 

The wind whistled about us, the rain pelted us, but the Major heededit nothing--neither did I--while K. Loudly congratulated himself onhaving come in waders and waterproof hat, as, through mud and mire, through puddles and clogging sand, we followed the Major's longboots, crossing bare plateaux, climbing precipitous slopes, leapingtrenches, slipping and stumbling, while ever the Major talked, wherefore I heeded not wind or rain, for the Major talked well. 

He descanted on the new and horribly vicious methods of bayonetfighting--the quick thrust and lightning recovery; struggling with meupon a sandy, rain-swept height, he showed me how, in wrestling foryour opponent's rifle, the bayonet is the thing. He halted us beforedevilish contrivances of barbed wire, each different from the other, but each just as ugly. He made us peep through loopholes, each andevery different from the other, yet each and every skilfully hiddenfrom an enemy's observation. We stood beside trenches of every shapeand kind while he pointed out their good and bad points; he broughtus to a place where dummy figures had been set up, their ragsa-flutter, forlorn objects in the rain. 

"Here, " said he, "is where we teach 'em to throw live bombs--you cansee where they've been exploding; dummies look a bit off-colour, don't they?" And he pointed to the ragged scarecrows with his whip. "You know, I suppose, " he continued, "that a Mills' bomb is quitesafe until you take out the pin, and then it is quite safe as long asyou hold it, but the moment it is loosed the lever flies off, whichreleases the firing lever and in a few seconds it explodes. It issurprising how men vary; some are born bombers, some soon learn, butsome couldn't be bombers if they tried--not that they're cowards, it's just a case of mentality. I've seen men take hold of a bomb, pull out the pin, and then stand with the thing clutched in theirfingers, absolutely unable to move! And there they'd stand till Lordknows when if the Sergeant didn't take it from them. I remember aqueer case once. We were saving the pins to rig up dummy bombs, andthe order was: 'Take the bomb in your right hand, remove the pin, putthe pin in your pocket, and at the word of command, throw the bomb. 'Well, this particular fellow was so wrought up that he threw away thepin and put the bomb in his pocket!"

"Was he killed?" I asked. 

"No. The sergeant just had time to dig the thing out of the man'spocket and throw it away. Bomb exploded in the air and knocked 'emboth flat. "

"Did the sergeant get the V. C. Or M. C. Or anything?" I enquired. 

The Major smiled and shook his head. 

"I have a good many sergeants here and they can't all have 'em! Nowcome and see my lecture theatres. "

Presently, looming through the rain, I saw huge circular structuresthat I could make nothing of, until, entering the larger of the two, I stopped in surprise, for I looked down into a huge, circularamphitheatre, with circular rows of seats descending tier below tierto a circular floor of sand, very firm and hard. 

"All made out of empty oil cans!" said the Major, tapping the nearestcan with his whip. "I have 'em filled with sand and stacked as yousee!--good many thousands of 'em here. Find it good for soundtoo--shout and try! This place holds about five thousand men--"

"Whose wonderful idea was this?"

"Oh, just a little wheeze of my own. Now, how about the poison gas;feel like going through it?"

I glanced at K. , K. Glanced at me. I nodded, so did K. 

"Certainly!" said I. Wherefore the Major led us over sandy hills andalong sandy valleys and so to a dingy and weatherworn hut, in whosedingy interior we found a bright-faced subaltern in dingy uniform andsurrounded by many dingy boxes and a heterogeneous collection ofthings. The subaltern was busy at work on a bomb with a penknife, while at his elbow stood a sergeant grasping a screwdriver, who, perceiving the Major, came to attention, while the cheery sub. Rose, beaming. 

"Can you give us some gas?" enquired the Major, after we had beenintroduced, and had shaken hands. 

"Certainly, sir!" nodded the cheerful sub. "Delighted!"

"You might explain something about it, if you will, " suggested theMajor. "Bombs and gas is your line, you know. "

The sub. Beamed, and giving certain directions to his sergeant, spakesomething on this wise. 

"Well, 'Frightful Fritz'--I mean the Boches, y'know, started bein'frightful some time ago, y'know--playin' their little tricks withgas an' tear-shells an' liquid fire an' that, and we left 'em to it. Y'see, it wasn't cricket--wasn't playin' the game--what! But Fritzkept at it and was happy as a bird, till one day we woke up an'started bein' frightful too, only when we did begin we werefrightfuller than ever Fritz thought of bein'--yes, rather! Our gasis more deadly, our lachrymatory shells are more lachrymose an' ourliquid fire's quite tophole--won't go out till it burns out--rathernot! So Frightful Fritz is licked at his own dirty game. I've triedhis and I've tried ours, an' I know. "

Here the sergeant murmured deferentially into the sub. 's ear, whereupon he beamed again and nodded. 

"Everything's quite ready!" he announced, "so if you're on?"

Here, after a momentary hesitation, I signified I was, whereupon oursub. Grew immensely busy testing sundry ugly, grey flannel gashelmets, fitted with staring eye-pieces of talc and with a hideoussnout in front. 

Having duly fitted on these clumsy things and buttoned them wellunder our coat collars, having shown us how we must breathe outthrough the mouthpiece which acts as a kind of exhaust, our sub. Donned his own headpiece, through which his cheery voice reached mein muffled tones:

"You'll feel a kind of ticklin' feelin' in the throat at first, butthat's all O. K. --only the chemical the flannel's saturated with. Nowfollow me, please, an' would you mind runnin', the rain's apt toweaken the solution. This way!"

Dutifully we hasted after him, ploughing through the wet sand, untilwe came to a heavily timbered doorway that seemingly opened into thehillside, and, beyond this yawning doorway I saw a thick, greenish-yellow mist, a fog exactly the colour of strong absinthe;and then we were in it. K. 's tall figure grew blurred, indistinct, faded utterly away, and I was alone amid that awful, swirling vapourthat held death in such agonising form. 

I will confess I was not happy, my throat was tickling provokingly, I began to cough and my windpipe felt too small. I hastened forward, but, even as I went, the light grew dimmer and the swirling fog moredense. I groped blindly, began to run, stumbled, and in that momentmy hand came in contact with an unseen rope. On I went into gloom, into blackness, until I was presently aware of my companions in frontand mightily glad of it. In a while, still following this invisiblerope, we turned a corner, the fog grew less opaque, thinned away to agreen mist, and we were out in the daylight again, and thankful was Ito whip off my stifling helmet and feel the clean wind in my hair andthe beat of rain upon my face. 

"Notice the ticklin' feelin'?" enquired our sub. , as he took ourhelmets and put them carefully by. "Bit tryin' at first, but you soonget used to it--yes, rather. Some of the men funk tryin' atfirst--and some hold their breath until they fairly well burst, an'some won't go in at all, so we carry 'em in. That gas you've tried isabout twenty times stronger than we get it in the open, but thesehelmets are a rippin' dodge till the chemical evaporates, then, ofcourse, they're no earthly. This is the latest device--quite atophole scheme!" And he showed us a box-like contrivance which, whenin use, is slung round the neck. 

"Are you often in the gas?" I enquired. 

"Every day--yes, rather!"

"For how long?"

"Well, I stayed in once for five hours on end--"

"Five hours!" I exclaimed, aghast. 

"Y'see, I was experimentin'!"

"And didn't you feel any bad effects?"

"Yes, rather! I was simply dyin' for a smoke. Like to try alachrymatory?" he enquired, reaching up to a certain dingy box. 

"Yes, " said I, glancing at K. "Oh, yes, if--"

"Only smart for the time bein', " our sub. Assured me. "Make you weepa bit!" Here from the dingy box he fished a particularlyvicious-looking bomb and fell to poking at it with a screwdriver. Iimmediately stepped back. So did K. The Major pulled his moustacheand flicked a chunk of mud from his boot with his whip. 

"Er--I suppose that thing's all right?" he enquired. 

"Oh, yes, quite all right, sir, quite all right, " nodded the sub. , using the screwdriver as a hammer. "Only wants a little fixin'. "

As I watched that deadly thing, for the second time I felt distinctlyunhappy; however, the refractory pin, or whatever it was, being fixedto his satisfaction, our sub. Led the way out of the dingy hut andgoing some few paces ahead, paused. 

"I'm goin' to give you a liquid-fire bomb first!" said he. "Watch!"

He drew back his hand and hurled the bomb. Almost immediately therewas a shattering report and the air was full of thick, grey smoke andyellow flame, smoke that rolled heavily along the ground towards us, flame that burned ever fiercer, fiery yellow tongues that leapt fromthe sand here and there, that writhed in the wind-gusts, but neverdiminished. 

"Stoop down!" cried the sub. , suiting the action to word, "stoop downand get a mouthful of that smoke--makes you jolly sick andunconscious in no time if you get enough of it. Tophole bomb, that--what!"

Then he brought us where those yellow flames leapt and hissed; someof these he covered with wet sand, and lo! they had ceased to be; butthe moment the sand was kicked away up they leapt again fiercer thanever. 

"We use 'em for bombing Boche dugouts now!" said he; and rememberingthe dugouts I had seen, I could picture the awful fate of thosewithin, the choking fumes, the fire-scorched bodies! Truly theexponents of Frightfulness have felt the recoil of their own vilemethods. 

"This is a lachrymatory!" said the sub. , whisking another bomb fromhis pocket. "When it pops, run forward and get in the smoke. It'llsting a bit, but don't rub the tears away--let 'em flow. Don't touchyour eyes, it'll only inflame 'em--just weep! Ready? One, two, three!" A second explosion louder than the first, a puff of bluesmoke into which I presently ran and then uttered a cry. So sharp, soexcruciating was the pain, that instinctively I raised hand to eyesbut checked myself, and with tears gushing over my cheeks, blind andagonised, I stumbled away from that hellish vapour. Very soon thepain diminished, was gone, and looking up through streaming tears Ibeheld the sub. Nodding and beaming approval. 

"Useful things, eh?" he remarked. "A man can't shed tears and shootstraight, an' he can't weep and fight well, both at the sametime--what? Fritz can be very frightful, but we can be more so whenwe want--yes, rather. The Boches have learned that there's nomonopoly in Frightfulness. "

In due season we shook hands with our cheery sub. , and left himbeaming after us from the threshold of the dingy hut. 

Britain has been called slow, old-fashioned, and behind the times, but to-day she is awake and at work to such mighty purpose that heronce small army is now numbered by the million, an army second tonone in equipment or hardy and dauntless manhood. 

From her Home Counties, from her Empire beyond the Seas, her millionshave arisen, brothers in arms henceforth, bonded together by a spiritof noble self-sacrifice--men grimly determined to suffer wounds andhardship and death itself, that for those who come after them, theworld may be a better place and humanity may never again be calledupon to endure all the agony and heartbreak of this generation. 

X

ARRAS

It was raining, and a chilly wind blew as we passed beneath abattered arch into the tragic desolation of Arras. 

I have seen villages pounded by gun-fire into hideous mounds of dustand rubble, their very semblance blasted utterly away; but Arras, shell-torn, scarred, disfigured for all time, is a city still--a Cityof Desolation. Her streets lie empty and silent, her once pleasantsquares are a dreary desolation, her noble buildings, monuments ofher ancient splendour, are ruined beyond repair. Arras is a deadcity, whose mournful silence is broken only by the intermittentthunder of the guns. 

Thus, as I paced these deserted streets where none moved save myself(for my companions had hastened on), as I gazed on ruined buildingsthat echoed mournfully to my tread, what wonder that my thoughts weregloomy as the day itself? I paused in a street of fair, tall houses, from whose broken windows curtains of lace, of plush, and tapestryflapped mournfully in the chill November wind like rags upon acorpse, while from some dim interior came the hollow rattle of adoor, and, in every gust, a swinging shutter groaned despairingly onrusty hinge. 

And as I stood in this narrow street, littered with the brick andmasonry of desolate homes, and listened to these mournful sounds, Iwondered vaguely what had become of all those for whom this door hadbeen wont to open, where now were the eyes that had looked down fromthese windows many and many a time--would they ever behold again thisquiet, narrow street, would these scarred walls echo again to thosesame voices and ring with joy of life and familiar laughter?

And now this desolate city became as it were peopled with the soulsof these exiles; they flitted ghostlike in the dimness behindflapping curtains, they peered down through closed jalousies--wraithsof the men and women and children who had lived and loved and playedhere before the curse of the barbarian had driven them away. 

And, as if to help this illusion, I saw many things that wereeloquent of these vanished people--glimpses through shattered windowsand beyond demolished house-fronts; here a table set for dinner, withplates and tarnished cutlery on a dingy cloth that stirred damp andlazily in the wind, yonder a grand piano, open and with sodden musicdrooping from its rest; here again chairs drawn cosily together. 

Wherever I looked were evidences of arrested life, of action suddenlystayed; in one bedroom a trunk open, with a pile of articles besideit in the act of being packed; in another, a great bed, its sheetsand blankets tossed askew by hands wild with haste; while in a roomlined with bookcases a deep armchair was drawn up to the hearth, with a small table whereon stood a decanter and a half-emptied glass, and an open book whose damp leaves stirred in the wind, now and then, as if touched by phantom fingers. Indeed, more than once I marvelledto see how, amid the awful wreckage of broken floors and tumbledceilings, delicate vases and chinaware had miraculously escapeddestruction. Upon one cracked wall a large mirror reflected the ruinof a massive carved sideboard, while in another house, hard by, amagnificent ivory and ebony crucifix yet hung above an awful twistedthing that had been a brass bedstead. 

Here and there, on either side this narrow street, ugly gaps showedwhere houses had once stood, comfortable homes, now only unsightlyheaps of rubbish, a confusion of broken beams and rafters, amid whichdivers familiar objects obtruded themselves, broken chairs andtables, a grandfather clock, and a shattered piano whose melody wassilenced for ever. 

Through all these gloomy relics of a vanished people I wentslow-footed and heedless of direction, until by chance I came outinto the wide Place and saw before me all that remained of thestately building which for centuries had been the Hotel de Ville, nownothing but a crumbling ruin of noble arch and massive tower; evenso, in shattered façade and mullioned window one might yet seesomething of that beauty which had made it famous. 

Oblivious of driving rain I stood bethinking me of this ancient city:how in the dark ages it had endured the horrors of battle and siege, had fronted the catapults of Rome, heard the fierce shouts ofbarbarian assailants, known the merciless savagery of religious wars, and remained a city still only for the cultured barbarian of to-dayto make of it a desolation. 

Very full of thought I turned away, but, as I crossed the desolatesquare, I was aroused by a voice that hailed me, seemingly frombeneath my feet, a voice that echoed eerily in that silent Place. Glancing about I beheld a beshawled head that rose above the litteredpavement, and, as I stared, the head nodded and smiling wanly, accosted me again. 

Coming thither I looked into a square opening with a flight of stepsleading down into a subterranean chamber, and upon these steps awoman sat knitting busily. She enquired if I wished to view thecatacombs, and pointed where a lamp burned above another opening andother steps descended lower yet, seemingly into the very bowels ofthe earth. To her I explained that my time was limited and all Iwished to see lay above ground, and from her I learned that some fewpeople yet remained in ruined Arras, who, even as she, livedunderground, since every day at irregular intervals the enemy firedinto the town haphazard. Only that very morning, she told me, anothershell had struck the poor Hotel de Ville, and she pointed to a new, white scar upon the shapeless tower. She also showed me an ugly rentupon a certain wall near by, made by the shell which had killed herhusband. Yes, she lived all alone now, she told me, waiting for thatgood day when the Boches should be driven beyond the Rhine, waitinguntil the townsfolk should come back and Arras wake to life again:meantime she knitted. 

Presently I saluted this solitary woman, and, turning away, left heramid the desolate ruin of that once busy square, her beshawled headbowed above feverishly busy fingers, left her as I had foundher--waiting. 

And now as I traversed those deserted streets it seemed that thisseemingly dead city did but swoon after all, despite its manygrievous wounds, for here was life even as the woman had said;evidences of which I saw here and there, in battered stovepipes thathad writhed themselves snake-like through rusty cellar gratings andholes in wall or pavement, miserable contrivances at best, whosefumes blackened the walls whereto they clung. Still, nowhere wasthere sound or sight of folk save in one small back street, where, ina shop that apparently sold everything, from pickles to picturepostcards, two British soldiers were buying a pair of braces from asmiling, haggard-eyed woman, and being extremely polite about it incryptic Anglo-French; and here I foregathered with my companions. Ourway led us through the railway station, a much-battered ruin, itsclock tower half gone, its platforms cracked and splintered, the irongirders of its great, domed roof bent and twisted, and with never asheet of glass anywhere. Between the rusty tracks grass and weedsgrew and flourished, and the few waybills and excursion placardswhich still showed here and there looked unutterably forlorn. In thebooking office was a confusion of broken desks, stools and overthrownchairs, the floor littered with sodden books and ledgers, but theracks still held thousands of tickets, bearing so many names theymight have taken any one anywhere throughout fair France once, butnow, it seemed, would never take any one anywhere. 

All at once, through the battered swing doors, marched a company ofsoldiers, the tramp of their feet and the lilt of their voicesfilling the place with strange echoes, for, being wet and weary andBritish, they sang cheerily. Packs a-swing, rifles on shoulder, theytramped through shell-torn waiting room and booking hall and outagain into wind and wet, and I remember the burden of their chantingwas: "Smile! Smile! Smile!"

In a little while I stood amid the ruins of the great cathedral; itsmighty pillars, chipped and scarred, yet rose high in air, but itslong aisles were choked with rubble and fallen masonry, while throughthe gaping rents of its lofty roof the rain fell, wetting theshattered heap of particoloured marble that had been the high altaronce. Here and there, half buried in the débris at my feet, I sawfragments of memorial tablets, a battered corona, the twisted remainsof a great candelabrum, and over and through this mournful ruin acold and rising wind moaned fitfully. Silently we clambered back overthe mountain of débris and hurried on, heedless of the devastationaround, heartsick with the gross barbarity of it all. 

They tell me that churches and cathedrals must of necessity bedestroyed since they generally serve as observation posts. But I haveseen many ruined churches--usually beautified by Time and hallowed bytradition--that by reason of site and position could never have beenso misused--and then there is the beautiful Chateau d'Eau!

Evening was falling, and as the shadows stole upon this silent city, a gloom unrelieved by any homely twinkle of light, these dreadfulstreets, these stricken homes took on an aspect more sinister andforbidding in the half-light. Behind those flapping curtains werepits of gloom full of unimagined terrors whence came unearthlysounds, stealthy rustlings, groans and sighs and sobbing voices. Ifghosts did flit behind those crumbling walls, surely they were verysad and woeful ghosts. 

"Damn this rain!" murmured K. Gently. 

"And the wind!" said F. , pulling up his collar. "Listen to it! It'sgoing to play the very deuce with these broken roofs and things if itblows hard. Going to be a beastly night, and a forty-mile drive infront of us. Listen to that wind! Come on--let's get away!"

Very soon, buried in warm rugs, we sped across dim squares, pastwind-swept ruins, under battered arch, and the dismal city was behindus, but, for a while, her ghosts seemed all about us still. 

As we plunged on through the gathering dark, past rows of trees thatleapt at us and were gone, it seemed to me that the soul of Arras wastypified in that patient, solitary woman who sat amid desolateruin--waiting for the great Day; and surely her patience cannot gounrewarded. For since science has proved that nothing can be utterlydestroyed, since I for one am convinced that the soul of man throughdeath is but translated into a fuller and more infinite living, sodo I think that one day the woes of Arras shall be done away, and sheshall rise again, a City greater perhaps and fairer than she was. 

XI

THE BATTLEFIELDS

To all who sit immune, far removed from war and all its horrors, tothose to whom when Death comes, he comes in shape as gentle as hemay--to all such I dedicate these tales of the front. 

How many stories of battlefields have been written of late, writtento be scanned hastily over the breakfast table or comfortably loungedover in an easy-chair, stories warranted not to shock or disgust, wherein the reader may learn of the glorious achievements of ourarmies, of heroic deeds and noble self-sacrifice, so that frequentlyI have heard it said that war, since it produces heroes, is a goodlything, a necessary thing. 

Can the average reader know or even faintly imagine the other sideof the picture? Surely not, for no clean human mind can compass allthe horror, all the brutal, grotesque obscenity of a modernbattlefield. Therefore I propose to write plainly, briefly, of thatwhich I saw on my last visit to the British front; for since inblood-sodden France men are dying even as I pen these lines, it seemsonly just that those of us for whom they are giving their livesshould at least know something of the manner of their dying. To thisend I visited four great battlefields and I would that all such ascry up war, its necessity, its inevitability, might have gone besideme. Though I have sometimes written of war, yet I am one that hateswar, one to whom the sight of suffering and bloodshed causes physicalpain, yet I forced myself to tread those awful fields of death andagony, to look upon the ghastly aftermath of modern battle, that, ifit be possible, I might by my testimony in some small way help thosewho know as little of war as I did once, to realise the horror of it, that loathing it for the hellish thing it is, they may, one and all, set their faces against war henceforth, with an unshakeabledetermination that never again shall it be permitted to maim, todestroy and blast out of being the noblest works of God. 

What I write here I set down deliberately, with no idea ofphrase-making, of literary values or rounded periods; this is andshall be a plain, trite statement of fact. 

And now, one and all, come with me in spirit, lend me your mind'seyes, and see for yourselves something of what modern war really is. 

Behold then a stretch of country--a sea of mud far as the eye canreach, a grim desolate expanse, its surface ploughed and churned bythousands of high-explosive shells into ugly holes and tortured heapslike muddy waves struck motionless upon this muddy sea. The guns aresilent, the cheers and frenzied shouts, the screams and groans havelong died away, and no sound is heard save the noise of my own going. 

The sun shone palely and a fitful wind swept across the waste, anoxious wind, cold and dank, that chilled me with a sudden dread evenwhile the sweat ran from me. I walked amid shell craters, sometimesknee-deep in mud; I stumbled over rifles half buried in the slime, onmuddy knapsacks, over muddy bags half full of rusty bombs, and soupon the body of a dead German soldier. With arms wide-flung andwrithen legs grotesquely twisted he lay there beneath my boot, hishead half buried in the mud, even so I could see that the maggots hadbeen busy, though the . . . . [1] had killed them where they clung. Sothere he lay, this dead Boche, skull gleaming under shrunken scalp, an awful, eyeless thing, that seemed to start, to stir and shiver asthe cold wind stirred his muddy clothing. Then nausea and a deadlyfaintness seized me, but I shook it off, and shivering, sweating, forced myself to stoop and touch that awful thing, and, with thetouch, horror and faintness passed, and in their place I felt a deepand passionate pity, for all he was a Boche, and with pity in myheart I turned and went my way. 

[Footnote 1: Deleted by censor. J. F. ]

But now, wherever I looked were other shapes, that lay in attitudesfrightfully contorted, grotesque and awful. Here the battle had rageddesperately. I stood in a very charnel-house of dead. From a mound ofearth upflung by a bursting shell a clenched fist, weather-bleachedand pallid, seemed to threaten me; from another emerged a pair ofcrossed legs with knees up-drawn, very like the legs of one who dozesgently on a hot day. Hard by, a pair of German knee-boots topped ashell crater, and drawing near, I saw the grey-green breeches, beltand pouches, and beyond--nothing but unspeakable corruption. Istarted back in horror and stepped on something that yieldedunderfoot--glanced down and saw a bloated, discoloured face, that, even as I looked, vanished beneath my boot and left a bare andgrinning skull. 

Once again the faintness seized me, and lifting my head I staredround about me and across the desolation of this hellish waste. Farin the distance was the road where men moved to and fro, busy withpicks and shovels, and some sang and some whistled and never soundmore welcome. Here and there across these innumerable shell holes, solitary figures moved, men, these, who walked heedfully and withheads down-bent. And presently I moved on, but now, like thesedistant figures, I kept my gaze upon that awful mud lest again Ishould trample heedlessly on something that had once lived and lovedand laughed. And they lay everywhere, here stark and stiff, with nopitiful earth to hide their awful corruption--here again, half buriedin slimy mud; more than once my nailed boot uncovered moulderingtunic or things more awful. And as I trod this grisly place my pitygrew, and with pity a profound wonder that the world with its so manymillions of reasoning minds should permit such things to be, until Iremembered that few, even the most imaginative, could realise thetrue frightfulness of modern men-butchering machinery, and my wonderchanged to a passionate desire that such things should be recordedand known, if only in some small measure, wherefore it is I writethese things. 

I wandered on past shell holes, some deep in slime, that heldnameless ghastly messes, some a-brim with bloody water, until I camewhere three men lay side by side, their hands upon their levelledrifles. For a moment I had the foolish thought that these men wereweary and slept, until, coming near, I saw that these had died by thesame shell-burst. Near them lay yet another shape, a mangled heap, one muddy hand yet grasping muddy rifle, while, beneath the other laythe fragment of a sodden letter--probably the last thing those dyingeyes had looked upon. 

Death in horrible shape was all about me. I saw the work wrought byshrapnel, by gas, and the mangled red havoc of high explosive. I onlyseemed unreal, like one that walked in a nightmare. Here and thereupon this sea of mud rose the twisted wreckage of aeroplanes, andfrom where I stood I counted five, but as I tramped on and on thesefive grew to nine. One of these lying upon my way I turned aside toglance at, and stared through a tangle of wires into a pallid thingthat had been a face once comely and youthful; the leather jacket hadbeen opened at the neck for the identity disc, as I suppose, andglancing lower, I saw that this leather jacket was discoloured, singed, burnt--and below this, a charred and unrecognisable mass. 

Is there a man in the world to-day who, beholding such horrors, wouldnot strive with all his strength to so order things that the hell ofwar should be made impossible henceforth? Therefore, I have recordedin some part what I have seen of war. 

So now, all of you who read, I summon you in the name of our commonhumanity, let us be up and doing. Americans--Anglo-Saxons, let ourcommon blood be a bond of brotherhood between us henceforth, a bondindissoluble. As you have now entered the war, as you are now ourallies in deed as in spirit, let this alliance endure hereafter. Already there is talk of some such League, which, in its might andunity, shall secure humanity against any recurrence of the evils theworld now groans under. Here is a noble purpose, and I conceive itthe duty of each one of us, for the sake of those who shall comeafter, that we should do something to further that which was oncelooked upon as only an Utopian dream--the universal Brotherhood ofMan. 

 "The flowers o' the forest are a' faded away. "

Far and wide they lie, struck down in the flush of manhood, full ofthe joyous, unconquerable spirit of youth. Who knows what nobleambitions once were theirs, what splendid works they might not havewrought? Now they lie, each poor, shattered body a mass of loathsomecorruption. Yet that diviner part, that no bullet may slay, no steelrend or mar, has surely entered into the fuller living, for Death isbut the gateway into Life and infinite possibilities. 

But, upon all who sit immune, upon all whom as yet this bitter warhas left untouched, is the blood of these that died in the cause ofhumanity, the cause of Freedom for us and the generations to come, this blood is upon each one of us--consecrating us to the task theyhave died to achieve, and it is our solemn duty to see that thewounds they suffered, the deaths they died, have not been, and shallnot be, in vain. 

XII

FLYING MEN

A few short years ago flying was in its experimental stage; to-day, though man's conquest of the air is yet a dream unrealised, it hasdeveloped enormously and to an amazing degree; to-day, flying is oneof the chief factors of this world war, both on sea and land. Uponthe Western front alone there are thousands upon thousands ofaeroplanes--monoplanes and biplanes--of hundreds of different makesand designs, of varying shapes and many sizes. I have seen giantsarmed with batteries of swivel guns and others mounting veritablecannon. Here are huge bomb-dropping machines with a vast wing spread;solid, steady-flying machines for photographic work, and the light, swift-climbing, double-gunned battle-planes, capable of mounting twothousand feet a minute and attaining a speed of two hundredkilometres. Of these last they are building scores a week at acertain factory I visited just outside Paris, and this factory isbut one of many. But the men (or rather, youths) who fly theseaerial marvels--it is of these rather than the machines that I wouldtell, since of the machines I can describe little even if I would; butI have watched them hovering unconcernedly (and quite contemptuousof the barking attention of "Archie") above white shrapnelbursts--fleecy, innocent-seeming puffs of smoke that go by the nameof "woolly bears. " I have seen them turn and hover and swoop, swiftand graceful as great eagles. I have watched master pilots of botharmies, English and French, perform soul-shaking gyrations high inair, feats quite impossible hitherto and never attempted untillately. There is now a course of aerial gymnastics which every fliermust pass successfully before he may call himself a "chasing" pilot;and, from what I have observed, it would seem that to become a pilotone must be either all nerve or possess no nerve at all. 

Conceive a biplane, thousands of feet aloft, suddenly flinging itsnose up and beginning to climb vertically as if intending to loop theloop; conceive of its pausing suddenly and remaining, for perhaps afull minute, poised thus upon its tail--absolutely perpendicular. Then, the engines switched off, conceive of it falling helplessly, tail first, reversing suddenly and plunging earthwards, spinninggiddily round and round very like the helpless flutter of a fallingleaf. Then suddenly, the engine roars again, the twisting, fluttering, dead thing becomes instinct with life, rights itselfmajestically on flashing pinions, swoops down in swift and headlongcourse, and turning, mounts the wind and soars up and up as light, asgraceful, as any bird. 

Other nerve-shattering things they do, these soaring young demigodsof the air, feats so marvellous to such earth-bound ones asmyself--feats indeed so wildly daring it would seem no ordinaryhuman could ever hope to attain unto. But in and around Paris and atthe front, I have talked with, dined with, and known many of thesebird-men, both English, French and American, and have generally foundthem very human indeed, often shy, generally simple and unaffected, and always modest of their achievements and full of admiration forseamen and soldiers, and heartily glad that their lives are notjeopardised aboard ships, or submarines, or in muddy trenches; whichsentiment I have heard fervently expressed--not once, but many times. Surely the mentality of the flier is beyond poor ordinaryunderstanding!

It was with some such thought in my mind that with my friend N. , awell-known American correspondent, I visited one of our flyingsquadrons at the front. The day was dull and cloudy, and N. , deepversed and experienced in flying and matters pertaining thereto, shook doubtful head. 

"We shan't see much to-day, " he opined, "low visibility--_plafond_only about a thousand!" Which cryptic sentence, by dint ofpertinacious questioning, I found to mean that the clouds were abouta thousand feet from earth and that it was misty. "_Plafond_", by theway, is aeronautic for cloud strata. Thus I stood with my gaze liftedheavenward until the Intelligence Officer joined us with a youthfulflight-captain, who, having shaken hands, looked up also and strokeda small and very young moustache. And presently he spoke as nearly asI remember on this wise:

"About twelve hundred! Rather rotten weather for ourbusiness--expecting some new machines over, too. "

"Has your squadron been out lately?" I enquired (I have the gift ofenquiry largely developed). 

"Rather! Lost four of our chaps yesterday--'Archie' got 'em. Rottenbad luck!"

"Are they--hurt?" I asked. 

"Well, we know two are all right, and one we think is, but theother--rather a pal of mine--"

"Do you often lose fellows?"

"Off and on--you see, we're a fighting squadron--must take a bit ofrisk now and then--it's the game, y'know!"

He brought me where stood biplanes and monoplanes of all sizes anddesigns, and paused beside a two-seater, gunned fore and aft, andwith ponderous, wide-flung wings. 

"This, " he explained, "is an old battle-plane, quite a veterantoo--jolly old bus in its way, but too slow; it's a 'pusher', yousee, and 'tractors' are all the go. We're having some overto-day--tophole machines. " Here ensued much technical discussionbetween him and N. As to the relative merits of traction andpropulsion. 

"Have you had many air duels?" I enquired at last, as we wandered onthrough a maze of wheels and wings and propellers. 

"Oh, yes, one or two, " he admitted, "though nothing very much!" hehastened to add. "Some of our chaps are pretty hot stuff, though. There's B. Now; B. 's got nine so far. "

"An air fight must be rather terrible?" said I. 

"Oh, I don't know!" he demurred. "Gets a bit lively sometimes. C. , one of our chaps, had a near go coming home yesterday--attacked byfive Boche machines, well over their own territory, of course. Theyswooped down on him out of a cloud. C. Got one right away, but theothers got him--nearly. They shot his gear all to pieces and put hisbally gun out of commission--bullet clean through the tray. Rottenbad luck! So, being at their mercy, C. Pretended they'd got him--dida turn-over and nose-dived through the clouds very nearly on two moreBoche machines that were waiting for him. So, thinking it was all upwith him, C. Dived straight for the nearest, meaning to take a Bochedown with him, but Hans didn't think that was playing the game, andpromptly hooked it. The other fellow had been blazing away and wasgetting a new drum fixed, when he saw C. Was on his tail makingtremendous business with his useless gun, so Fritz immediately divedaway out of range, and C. Got home with about fifty bullet holes inhis wings and his gun crocked, and--oh, here he is!"

Flight-Lieutenant C. Appeared, rather younger than his Captain, along, slender youth, with serious brow and thoughtful eyes, whom Iforthwith questioned as diplomatically as might be. 

"Oh, yes!" he answered, in response to my various queries, "it wasexciting for a minute or so, but I expect the Captain has beenpulling your leg no end. Yes, they smashed my gun. Yes, they hitpretty well everything except me and my mascot--they didn't get that, by good luck. No, I don't think a fellow would mind 'getting it' inthe ordinary way--a bullet, say. But it's the damned petrol catchingalight and burning one's legs. " Here the speaker bent to survey hislong legs with serious eyes. "Burning isn't a very nice finishsomehow. They generally manage to chuck themselves out--when theycan. Hello--here comes one of our new machines--engine sounds niceand smooth!" said he, cocking an ear. Sure enough, came a faint purrthat grew to a hum, to an ever-loudening drone, and out from theclouds an aeroplane appeared, which, wheeling in graceful spirals, sank lower and lower, touched earth, rose, touched again, and so, engine roaring, slid smoothly toward us over the grass. Then appearedmen in blue overalls, who seized the gleaming monster in unawed, accustomed hands, steadied it, swung it round, and halted it withinspeaking distance. 

Hereupon its leather-clad pilot climbed stiffly out, vituperated theweather and lit a cigarette. 

"How is she?" enquired the Captain. 

"A lamb! A witch! Absolutely tophole when you get used to her. " Thetophole lamb and witch was a smallish biplane with no great wingspread, but powerfully engined, whose points N. Explained to meas--her speed, her climbing angle, her wonderful stability, etc. , while the Captain and Lieutenant hastened off to find the Major, who, appearing in due course, proved to be slender, merry-eyed andmore youthful-looking than the Lieutenant. Indeed, so young seemingwas he that upon better acquaintance I ventured to enquire his age, and he somewhat unwillingly owned to twenty-three. 

"But, " said he, "I'm afraid we can't show you very much, theweather's so perfectly rotten for flying. "

"Oh, I don't know, " said the Captain, glancing towards thewitch-lamb, "I rather thought I'd like to try this new machine--ifyou don't mind, sir. "

"Same here, " murmured the Lieutenant. 

"But you've never flown a Nieuport before, have you, eh?" enquiredthe Major. 

"No, sir, but--"

"Nor you either, C. ?"

"No, sir, still--"

"Then I'll try her myself, " said the Major, regarding the witch-lambjoyous-eyed. 

"But, " demurred the Captain, "I was rather under the impressionyou'd never flown one either. "

"I haven't--yet, " laughed the Major, and hasted away for his coat andhelmet. 

"Can you beat that?" exclaimed the Lieutenant. 

The Captain sighed and went to aid the Major into his leathernarmour. Lightly and joyously the youthful Major climbed into themachine and sat awhile to examine and remark upon its unfamiliarfeatures, while a sturdy mechanic stood at the propeller ready tostart the engine. 

"By the way, " said he, turning to address me. "You're staying toluncheon, of course?"

"I'm afraid we can't, " answered our Intelligence Officer. 

"Oh, but you must--I've ordered soup! Right-oh!" he called to hismechanician; the engine hummed, thundered, and roaring, cast backupon us a very gale of wind; the witch-lamb moved, slid forward overthe grass, and gathering speed, lifted six inches, a yard, tenyards--and was in flight. 

"Can you beat that?" exclaimed the Captain enthusiastically, "liftedher clean away!"

"I rather fancy he's about as good as they're made!" observed theLieutenant. Meanwhile, the witch-lamb soared up and up straight as anarrow; up she climbed, growing rapidly less until she was a gnatagainst a background of fleecy cloud and the roar of the engine haddiminished to a whine; up and up until she was a speck--until theclouds had swallowed her altogether. 

"Pity it isn't clear!" said the Captain. "I rather fancy you'd haveseen some real flying. By the way, they're going to practise at thetargets--might interest you. Care to see?"

The targets were about a yard square and, as I watched, an aeroplanerose, wheeling high above them. All at once the hum of the engine waslost in the sharp, fierce rattle of a machine gun; and ever as thebiplane banked and wheeled the machine gun crackled. From every angleand from every point of the compass these bullets were aimed, andexamining the targets afterwards I was amazed to see how many hitshad been registered. 

After this they brought me to the workshops where many mechanics werebusied; they showed me, among other grim relics, C. 's broken machinegun and perforated cartridge tray. They told me many stories ofdaring deeds performed by other members of the squadron, but when Iasked them to describe their own experiences, I found them diffidentand monosyllabic. 

"Hallo!" exclaimed C. , as we stepped out into the air, "here comesthe Major. He's in that cloud--know the sound of his engine. " Sureenough, out from a low-lying cloud-bank he came, wheeling in shortspirals, plunging earthward. 

Down sank the aeroplane, the roaring engine fell silent, roaredagain, and she sped towards us, her wheels within a foot or so ofearth. Finally they touched, the engine stopped and the witch-lambpulled up within a few feet of us. Hereupon the Major waved agauntleted hand to us. 

"Must stop to lunch, " he cried, "I've ordered soup, you know. "

But this being impossible, we perforce said good-by to thesewarm-hearted, simple-souled fighting men, a truly regrettablefarewell so far as I was concerned. They escorted us to the car, andthere parted from us with many frank expressions of regard and stoodside by side to watch us out of sight. 

"Yesterday there was much aerial activity on our front. 

"Depôts were successfully bombed and five enemy machines were forcedto descend, three of them in flames. Four of ours did not return. "

I shall never read these oft recurring lines in the communiquéswithout thinking of those three youthful figures, so full of life andthe joy of life, who watched us depart that dull and cloudy morning. 

Here is just one other story dealing with three seasonedair-fighters, veterans of many deadly combats high above the clouds, each of whom has more than one victory to his credit, and whosecombined ages total up to sixty or thereabouts. We will call them X. , Y. And Z. Now X. Is an American, Y. Is an Englishman, whosepeach-like countenance yet bears the newly healed scar of a bulletwound, and Z. Is an Afrikander. Here begins the story:

Upon a certain day of wind, rain and cloud, news came that the Bocheswere massing behind their lines for an attack, whereupon X. , Y. AndZ. Were ordered to go up and verify this. Gaily enough they starteddespite unfavourable weather conditions. The clouds were low, verylow, but they must fly lower, so, at an altitude varying from fifteenhundred to a bare thousand feet, they crossed the German lines, Y. And Z. Flying wing and wing behind X. 's tail. All at once "Archie"spoke, a whole battery of anti-aircraft guns filled the air withsmoke and whistling bullets--away went X. 's propeller and his machinewas hurled upside down; immediately Y. And Z. Rose. By marvellouspilotage X. Managed to right his crippled machine and began, ofcourse, to fall; promptly Y. And Z. Descended. It is, I believe, anunwritten law in the Air Service never to desert a comrade until heis seen to be completely "done for"--hence Y. And Z. 's hawk-likeswoop from the clouds to draw the fire of the battery from theirstricken companion. Down they plunged through the battery smoke, firing their machine guns point-blank as they came; and so, wheelingin long spirals, their guns crackling viciously, they mounted againand soared cloudward together, but, there among the clouds and incomparative safety, Z. Developed engine trouble. Their ruse hadserved, however, and X. Had contrived to bring his shattered biplaneto earth safely behind the British lines. Meanwhile Y. And Z. Continued on toward their objective, but Z. 's engine trouble becomingchronic, he fell behind more and more, and finally, leaving Y. Tocarry on alone, was forced to turn back. And now it was that, in themists ahead, he beheld another machine which, coming swiftly downupon him, proved to be a German, who, mounting above him, promptlyopened fire. Z. , struggling with his baulking engine, had his handspretty full; moreover his opponent, owing to greater speed, couldattack him from precisely what angle he chose. So they wheeled andflew, Z. Endeavouring to bring his gun to bear, the German keepingskilfully out of range, now above him, now below, but ever and alwaysbehind. Thus the Boche flying on Z. 's tail had him at his mercy; abullet ripped his sleeve, another smashed his speedometer, yetanother broke his gauge--slowly and by degrees nearly all Z. 's gearis either smashed or carried away by bullets. All this time it is tobe supposed that Z. , thus defenceless, is wheeling and turning aswell as his crippled condition will allow, endeavouring to get a shotat his elusive foe; but (as he told me) he felt it was his finish, sohe determined if possible to ram his opponent and crash down with himthrough the clouds. Therefore, waiting until the Boche was aiming athim from directly below, he threw his machine into a sudden dive. Thus for one moment Z. Had him in range, for a moment only, but therange was close and deadly, and Z. Fired off half his tray as heswooped headlong down upon his astonished foe. All at once the Germanwaved an arm and sagged over sideways, his great battle-planewavering uncertainly, and, as it began to fall, Z. Avoided theintended collision by inches. Down went the German machine, down anddown, and, watching, Z. Saw it plunge through the clouds wrapped inflame. 

Then Z. Turned and made for home as fast as his baulking engine wouldallow. 

These are but two stories among dozens I have heard, yet these, Ithink, will suffice to show something of the spirit animating theseyoung paladins. The Spirit of Youth is surely a godlike spirit, unconquerable, care-free, undying. It is a spirit to whom fear anddefeat are things to smile and wonder at, to whom risks and dangersare joyous episodes, and Death himself, whose face their youthfuleyes have so often looked into, a friend familiar by closeacquaintanceship. 

Upon a time I mentioned some such thought to an American aviator, whonodded youthful head and answered in this manner:

"The best fellows generally go first, and such a lot are gone nowthat there'll be a whole bunch of them waiting to say 'Hello, oldsport!' so--what's it matter, anyway?"

XIII

YPRES

Much has been written concerning Ypres, but more, much more, remainsto be written. Some day, in years to come, when the roar of guns hasbeen long forgotten, and Time, that great and beneficent consoler, has dried the eyes that are now wet with the bitter tears ofbereavement and comforted the agony of stricken hearts, at such atime some one will set down the story of Ypres in imperishable words;for round about this ancient town lie many of the best and bravest ofBritain's heroic army. Thick, thick, they lie together, Englishman, Scot and Irishman, Australian, New Zealander, Canadian and Indian, linked close in the comradeship of death as they were in life; butthe glory of their invincible courage, their noble self-sacrificeand endurance against overwhelming odds shall never fade. Surely, surely while English is spoken the story of "Wipers" will live on forever and, through the coming years, will be an inspiration to thosefor whom these thousands went, cheering and undismayed, to meet andconquer Death. 

Ypres, as all the world knows, forms a sharp salient in the Britishline, and is, therefore, open to attack on three sides; and on thesethree sides it has been furiously attacked over and over again, sovery often that the mere repetition would grow wearisome. And theseattacks were day-long, week- and sometimes month-long battles, butBritain's army stood firm. 

In these bad, dark days, outnumbered and out-gunned, they neverwavered. Raked by flanking fire they met and broke the charges ofdense-packed foemen on their front; rank upon rank and elbow to elbowthe Germans charged, their bayonets a sea of flashing steel, theirthunderous shouts drowning the roar of guns, and rank on rank theyreeled back from British steel and swinging rifle-butt, and Germanshouts died and were lost in British cheers. 

So, day after day, week after week, month after month they enduredstill; swept by rifle and machine-gun fire, blown up by mines, buriedalive by mortar bombs, their very trenches smitten flat by highexplosives--yet they endured and held on. They died all day and everyday, but their places were filled by men just as fiercely determined. And ever as the countless German batteries fell silent, their troopsin dense grey waves hurled themselves upon shattered British trenchand dugout, and found there wild men in tunics torn and bloody andmud-bespattered, who, shouting in fierce joy, leapt to meet thembayonet to bayonet. With clubbed rifle and darting steel they fought, these men of the Empire, heedless of wounds and death, smiting andcheering, thrusting and shouting, until those long, close-rankedcolumns broke, wavered and melted away. Then, panting, they castthemselves back into wrecked trench and blood-spattered shell holewhile the enemy's guns roared and thundered anew, and waitedpatiently but yearningly for another chance to "really fight. " Sothey held this deadly salient. 

Days came and went, whole regiments were wiped out, but they held on. The noble town behind them crumbled into ruin beneath the shriekingavalanche of shells, but they held on. German and British dead laythick from British parapet to Boche wire, and over this awful litterfresh attacks were launched daily, but still they held on, and wouldhave held and will hold, until the crack of doom if need be--becauseBritain and the Empire expect it of them. 

But to-day the dark and evil time is passed. To-day for every Germanshell that crashes into the salient, four British shells burst alongthe enemy's position, and it was with their thunder in my ears that Itraversed that historic, battle-torn road which leads into Ypres, that road over which so many young and stalwart feet have trampedthat never more may come marching back. And looking along this road, lined with scarred and broken trees, my friend N. Took off his hatand I did the like. 

"It's generally pretty lively here, " said our Intelligence Officer, as I leaned forward to pass him the matches. "We're going to speed upa bit--road's a bit bumpy, so hold on. " Guns were roaring near andfar, and in the air above was the long, sighing drone of shells as weraced forward, bumping and swaying over the uneven surface faster andfaster, until, skidding round a rather awkward corner, we saw beforeus a low-lying, jagged outline of broken walls, shattered towers anda tangle of broken roof-beams--all that remains of the famous oldtown of Ypres. And over this devastation shells moaned distressfully, and all around unseen guns barked and roared. So, amidst thispandemonium our car lurched into shattered "Wipers", past thedismantled water-tower, uprooted from its foundations and leaning ata more acute angle than will ever the celebrated tower of Pisa, pastugly heaps of brick and rubble--the ruins of once fair buildings, onand on until we pulled up suddenly before a huge something, shatteredand formless, a long façade of broken arches and columns, great roofgone, mighty walls splintered, cracked and rent--all that "Kultur"has left of the ancient and once beautiful Cloth Hall. 

"Roof's gone since I was here last, " said the Intelligence Officer, "come this way. You'll see it better from over here. " So we followedhim and stood to look upon the indescribable ruin. 

"There are no words to describe--that, " said N. At last, gloomily. 

"No, " I answered. "Arras was bad enough, but this--!"

"Arras?" he repeated. "Arras is only a ruined town. Ypres is arubbish dump. And its Cloth Hall is--a bad dream. " And he turnedaway. Our Intelligence Officer led us over mounds of fallen masonryand débris of all sorts, and presently halted us amid a ruin ofsplintered columns, groined arch and massive walls, and pointed to aheap of rubbish he said was the altar. 

"This is the Church St. Jean, " he explained, "begun, I think, in theeleventh or twelfth century and completed somewhere about 1320--"

"And, " said N. , "finally finished and completely done for by 'Kultur'in the twentieth century, otherwise I guess it would have lasteduntil the 220th century--look at the thickness of the walls. "

"And after all these years of civilisation, " said I. 

"Civilisation, " he snorted, turning over a fragment of exquisitelycarved moulding with the toe of his muddy boot, "civilisation hasdone a whole lot, don't forget--changed the system of plumbing andtaught us how to make high explosives and poison gas. "

Gloomily enough we wandered on together over rubbish piles andmountains of fallen brickwork, through shattered walls, pastunlovely stumps of mason-work that had been stately tower or belfryonce, beneath splintered arches that led but from one scene of ruinto another, and ever our gloom deepened, for it seemed that Ypres, the old Ypres, with all its monuments of mediæval splendour, itsnoble traditions of hard-won freedom, its beauty and glory, waspassed away and gone for ever. 

"I don't know how all this affects you, " said N. , his big chin juttedgrimly, "but I hate it worse than a battlefield. Let's get on over tothe Major's office. "

We went by silent streets, empty except for a few soldierly figuresin hard-worn khaki, desolate thoroughfares that led between piles andhuge unsightly mounds of fallen masonry and shattered brickwork, fallen beams, broken rafters and twisted ironwork, across a desolatesquare shut in by the ruin of the great Cloth Hall and other oncestately buildings, and so to a grim, battle-scarred edifice, its roofhalf blown away, its walls cracked and agape with ugly holes, itsdoorway reinforced by many sandbags cunningly disposed, through whichwe passed into the dingy office of the Town Major. 

As we stood in that gloomy chamber, dim-lighted by a solitary oillamp, floor and walls shook and quivered to the concussion of ashell--not very near, it is true, but quite near enough. 

The Major was a big man, with a dreamy eye, a gentle voice and apassion for archæology. In his company I climbed to the top of a highbuilding, whence he pointed out, through a convenient shell hole, where the old walls had stood long ago, where Vauban's star-shapedbastions were, and the general conformation of what had beenpresent-day Ypres; but I saw only a dusty chaos of shattered arch andtower and walls, with huge, unsightly mounds of rubble and brick--arubbish dump in very truth. Therefore I turned to the quiet-voicedMajor and asked him of his experiences, whereupon he talked to memost interestingly and very learnedly of Roman tile, of mediævalrubble-work, of herringbone and Flemish bond. He assured me also that(_Deo volente_) he proposed to write a monograph on the variousepochs of this wonderful old town's history as depicted by itsvarious styles of mason-work and construction. 

"I could show you a nearly perfect aqueduct if you have time, " saidhe. 

"I'm afraid we ought to be starting now, " said the IntelligenceOfficer; "over eighty miles to do yet, you see, Major. "

"Do you have many casualties still?" I enquired. 

"Pretty well, " he answered. "The mediæval wall was superimposed uponthe Roman, you'll understand. "

"And is it, " said I as we walked on together, "is it always as noisyas this?"

"Oh, yes--especially when there's a 'Hate' on. "

"Can you sleep?"

"Oh, yes, one gets used to anything, you know. Though, strangelyenough, I was disturbed last night--two of my juniors had to campover my head, their quarters were blown up rather yesterdayafternoon, and believe me, the young beggars talked and chattered sothat I couldn't get a wink of sleep--had to send and order them toshut up. "

"You seem to have been getting it pretty hot since I was here last, "said the Intelligence Officer, waving a hand round the crumbling ruinabout us. 

"Fairly so, " nodded the Major. 

"One would wonder the enemy wastes any more shells on Ypres, " said I, "there's nothing left to destroy, is there?"

"Well, there's us, you know!" said the Major gently, "and then theBoche is rather a revengeful beggar anyhow--you see, he wasted quitea number of army corps trying to take Ypres. And he hasn't got ityet. "

"Nor ever will, " said I. 

The Major smiled and held out his hand. 

"It's a pity you hadn't time to see that aqueduct, " he sighed. "However, I shall take some flashlight photos of it--if my luckholds. Good-by. " So saying, he raised a hand to his weather-beatentrench cap and strode back into his dim-lit, dingy office. 

The one-time glory of Ypres has vanished in ruin but thereby she hasfound a glory everlasting. For over the wreck of noble edifice andfallen tower is another glory that shall never fade but rather growwith coming years--an imperishable glory. As pilgrims sought it onceto tread its quaint streets and behold its old-time beauty, so indays to come other pilgrims will come with reverent feet and witheyes that shall see in these shattered ruins a monument to thedeathless valour of that brave host that met death unflinching andunafraid for the sake of a great ideal and the welfare of unborngenerations. 

And thus in her ruin Ypres has found the Glory Everlasting. 

XIV

WHAT BRITAIN HAS DONE

The struggle of Democracy and Reason against Autocracy and BruteForce, on land and in the air, upon the sea and under the sea, isreaching its climax. With each succeeding month the ignoble foe hassmirched himself with new atrocities which yet in the end bring theirown terrible retribution. 

Three of the bloodiest years in the world's history lie behind us;but these years of agony and self-sacrifice, of heroic achievements, of indomitable purpose and unswerving loyalty to an ideal, are surelythree of the most tremendous in the annals of the British Empire. 

I am to tell something of what Britain has accomplished during theseawful three years, of the mighty changes she has wrought in thisshort time, of how, with her every thought and effort bent in the onedirection, she has armed and equipped herself and many of her allies;of the armies she has raised, the vast sums she has expended and themunitions and armaments she has amassed. 

To this end it is my privilege to lay before the reader certain factsand figures, so I propose to set them forth as clearly and briefly asmay be, leaving them to speak for themselves. 

For truly Britain has given and is giving much--her men and women, her money, her very self; the soul of Britain and her Empire is inthis conflict, a soul that grows but the more steadfast anddetermined as the struggle waxes more deadly and grim. Faint heartsand fanatics there are, of course, who, regardless of the future, would fain make peace with the foe unbeaten, a foe lost to all shameand honourable dealing, but the heart of the Empire beats true to theold war-cry of "Freedom or Death. " In proof of which, if proof beneeded, let us to our figures and facts. 

Take first her fighting men: in three short years her little army hasgrown until to-day seven million of her sons are under arms, and ofthese (most glorious fact!) nearly five million were _volunteers_. Surely since first this world was cursed by war, never did such ahost march forth voluntarily to face its blasting horrors. They arefighting on many battle-fronts, these citizen-soldiers, in France, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Western Egypt and German EastAfrica, and behind them, here in the homeland, are the women, workingas their men fight, with a grim and tireless determination. To-daythe land hums with munition factories and huge works whose countlesswheels whirr day and night, factories that have sprung up where thegrass grew so lately. The terrible, yet glorious, days of Mons andthe retreat, when her little army, out-gunned and out-manned, held upthe rushing might of the German advance so long as life andammunition lasted, that black time is past, for now in France andFlanders our countless guns crash in ceaseless concert, so that herein England one may hear their ominous muttering all day long andthrough the hush of night; and hearkening to that continuousstammering murmur one thanks God for the women of Britain. 

Two years ago, in June, 1915, the Ministry of Munitions was formedunder Mr. David Lloyd George; as to its achievements, here arefigures which shall speak plainer than any words. 

In the time of Mons the army was equipped and supplied by threeGovernment factories and a very few auxiliary firms; to-day giganticnational factories, with miles of railroads to serve them, are infull swing, beside which, thousands of private factories arecontrolled by the Government. As a result the output of explosives inMarch, 1917, was over _four times_ that of March, 1916, and_twenty-eight times_ that of March, 1915, and so enormous has beenthe production of shells that in the first nine weeks of the summeroffensive of 1917 the stock decreased by only seven per cent. Despitethe appalling quantity used. 

The making of machine guns to-day as compared with 1915 has increased_twenty-fold_, while the supply of small-arm ammunition has become soabundant that the necessity for importation has ceased altogether. Inone Government factory alone the making of rifles has increased_ten-fold_, and the employees at Woolwich Arsenal have increased froma little less than _eleven thousand_ to nearly _seventy-fourthousand_, of whom _twenty-five thousand_ are women. 

Production of steel, before the war, was roughly seven million tons;it is now ten million tons and still increasing, so much so that itis expected the pre-war output will be doubled by the end of 1918;while the cost of steel plates here is now less than half the cost inthe U. S. A. Since May, 1917, the output of aeroplanes has beenquadrupled and is rapidly increasing; an enormous programme ofconstruction has been laid down and plans drawn up for its completerealisation. 

With this vast increase in the production of munitions the cost ofeach article has been substantially reduced by systematic examinationof actual cost, resulting in a saving of £43, 000, 000 over theprevious year's prices. 

Figures are a dry subject in themselves, and yet such figures asthese are, I venture to think, of interest, among other reasons forthe difficulty the human brain has to appreciate their full meaning. Thus: the number of articles handled weekly by the Stores Departmentsis several hundreds of thousands above fifty million: or again, Iread that the munition workers themselves have contributed£40, 187, 381 towards various war loans. It is all very easy to write, but who can form any just idea of such uncountable numbers?

And now, writing of the sums of money Britain has already expended, Ifor one am immediately lost, out of my depth and plunged tenthousand fathoms deep, for now I come upon the following:

"The total national expenditure for the three years to August 4th, 1917, is approximately £5, 150, 000, 000, of which £1, 250, 000, 000 isalready provided for by taxation and £1, 171, 000, 000 has been lent toour colonies and allies, which may be regarded as an investment. "Having written which I lay down my pen to think, and, giving it up, hasten to record the next fact. 

"The normal pre-war taxation amounted to approximately £200, 000, 000, but for the current financial year (1917-1918) a revenue of£638, 000, 000 has been budgeted for, but this is expected to producebetween £650, 000, 000 and £700, 000, 000. " Now, remembering that thecost of necessaries has risen to an unprecedented extent, thesefigures of the extra taxation and the amounts raised by the variouswar loans speak louder and more eloquently than any words howmanfully Britain has shouldered her burden and of her determinationto see this great struggle through to the only possibleconclusion--the end, for all time, of autocratic government. 

I have before me so many documents and so much data bearing on thisvast subject that I might set down very much more; I might descant onmarvels of enterprise and organisation and of almost insuperabledifficulties overcome. But, lest I weary the reader, and since Iwould have these lines read, I will hasten on to the last of my factsand figures. 

As regards ships, Britain has already placed six hundred vessels atthe disposal of France and four hundred have been lent to Italy, thecombined tonnage of these thousand ships being estimated at twomillion. 

Then, despite her drafts to Army and Navy she has still a million menemployed in her coal mines and is supplying coal to Italy, France andRussia. Moreover, she is sending to France one quarter of her totalproduction of steel, munitions of all kinds to Russia and guns andgunners to Italy. 

As for her Navy--the German battle squadrons lie inactive, while inone single month the vessels of the British Navy steamed over onemillion miles; German trading ships have been swept from the seas andthe U-boat menace is but a menace still. Meantime, British shipyardsare busy night and day; a million tons of craft for the Navy alonewere launched during the first year of the war, and the programme ofnew naval construction for 1917 runs into hundreds of thousands oftons. In peace time the building of new merchant ships was just under2, 000, 000 tons yearly, and despite the shortage of labour anddifficulty of obtaining materials, 1, 100, 000 tons will be built bythe end of 1917, and 4, 000, 000 tons in 1918. 

The British Mercantile Marine (to whom be all honour!) hastransported during the war, the following:--

 13, 000, 000 men, 25, 000, 000 tons of war material, 1, 000, 000 sick and wounded, 51, 000, 000 tons of coal and oil fuel, 2, 000, 000 horses and mules, 100, 000, 000 hundredweights of wheat, 7, 000, 000 tons of iron ore, and, beyond this, has exported goods to the value of £500, 000, 000. 

Here ends my list of figures and here this chapter should end also;but, before I close, I would give, very briefly and in plainlanguage, three examples of the spirit animating this Empire thatto-day is greater and more worthy by reason of these last threeblood-smirched years. 

 No. I

There came from Australia at his own expense, one Thomas Harper, anold man of seventy-four, to help in a British munition factory. Helaboured hard, doing the work of two men, and more than once faintedwith fatigue, but refused to go home because he "couldn't rest whilehe thought his country needed shells. "

 No. II

There is a certain small fishing village whose men were nearly allemployed in fishing for mines. But there dawned a black day when newscame that forty of their number had perished together and in the samehour. Now surely one would think that this little village, plunged ingrief for the loss of its young manhood, had done its duty to theuttermost for Britain and their fellows! But these heroic fisher-folkthought otherwise, for immediately fifty of the remainingseventy-five men (all over military age) volunteered and sailed awayto fill the places of their dead sons and brothers. 

 No. III

Glancing idly through a local magazine some days since, my eye wasarrested by this:

"In proud and loving memory of our loved and loving son . . . Who fellin France . . . With his only brother, 'On Higher Service. ' There is nodeath. "

Thus then I conclude my list of facts and figures, a record ofachievement such as this world has never known before, a record to beproud of, because it is the outward and visible sign of a peoplestrong, virile, abounding in energy, but above all, a people clean ofsoul to whom Right and Justice are worth fighting for, suffering for, labouring for. It is the sign of a people which is willing to enduremuch for its ideals that the world may be a better world, whereinthose who shall come hereafter may reap, in peace and contentment, the harvest this generation has sowed in sorrow, anguish and greattravail. 

 THE END

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors;otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author'swords and intent.