‘Bloomin’ ’andsome,’ said one driver admiringly. ‘I’m goin’ to send

mine ’ome to be kep’ for me. There’ll be bags o’ new troops out ’ere in

the spring, but we’ll allus ’ave these to show we was out wi’ the first

crush.’

‘My dad’s got ’is Queen’s chocolate box yet that she gave the first lot

out in S’th Africa,’ said Driver Ruff. ‘I’ll be upsides with ’im now.’

‘I been thinkin’ this week past,’ said a third, ‘that I never knew

anythin’ less like Christmas comin’. It seems more like it now somehow.’

And so ‘somehow’ it did. One might hardly expect a handful of men, turned

out in the raw cold small hours of a winter morning, standing in mud

over their boots, with a long weary day’s work and a bare half night’s

uncomfortable sleep behind them, and another wet and weary day ahead, to

rise with any enthusiasm to a call for ‘three cheers for the King and

Queen.’ But they did it, the ‘H’ray’ leaping eagerly and cheerfully close

on the last sound of the word, of the officer’s ‘Hip-hip-hip⸺.’

And Driver Ruff’s was the first and loudest and gayest voice of the lot.

INTO GERMANY ON THE EVE OF WAR.

BY W. E. DE B. WHITTAKER.

Early in 1914 there had been various schemes in being with the object of

crossing the Atlantic by aeroplane under the terms of a prize offered by

a London print. Two alone of these were in any way practicable, one by

an English retired naval officer on an aeroplane provided at the expense

of an American millionaire, and the other by the late Mr. Gustav Hamel,

who was to have flown from Newfoundland on an English aeroplane, and

who would have been financed by English money. Mr. Hamel was drowned

in the English Channel on May 23, when the arrangements for the great

flight were in a very advanced stage. A few weeks later Mr. H. S. Keating

came forward and made private arrangements to take over part of the

organisation which had been brought together earlier in the year. He

intended himself to make the proposed attempt to fly from Newfoundland to

Ireland at his own expense. This personal assumption of the burden of the

entire cost made the attempt one of pure sport without any hope of gain,

as the expenditure must of necessity very greatly exceed the amount of

the prize offered.

Harry Sheehy Keating, an Irishman by birth, a one-time subaltern in the

Grenadier Guards, had spent a year or two in the United States and in

Mexico, during which period he had become an aviator. Of an adventurous

disposition, he welcomed any form of sport or daring that would relieve

the monotony of existence—before the war.

The selection of an aeroplane on which to make the Atlantic flight was

a matter of no little difficulty. We heard that on July 10 Herr Boehm

had flown at Johannisthal on an Albatross biplane for twenty-four hours

twelve minutes without once alighting. We decided therefore that we would

go to Berlin and see what the Albatross Company could do for us.

As we had neither of us travelled in Holland or Germany we determined

to motor from the Hook of Holland to Berlin and back. The threat of war

which by now filled all the London news sheets we did not believe. ‘Wolf’

had been cried so often. The Sarajevo murder and its immediate results

would drift into history in company with Fashoda and Agadir and no blood

at all would be spilt.

An accident detained us on the way to Harwich, so that we missed Saturday

and Sunday’s boats, and only landed at the Hook in the very early morning

of Tuesday, July 27, and at once entered into a fog of mystery which did

not lift entirely until we reached the Hague on our return journey on

August 5. We neither of us knew a word of the language of either country

which we were to visit, and the daily papers contained what were to us

merely cabalistic symbols.

We crossed the German frontier a mile or two beyond Oldenzaal and

by dinner time we had reached Rheine. Here the weather changed. The

sun disappeared and a depressing soft rain began to fall. We dined

uncomfortably and wondered a little irritably why the German people

should be so excited. We knew no reason.

Anxious to reach Berlin with as little delay as possible we left Rheine

after dinner and drove through the darkness and pouring rain and

appalling roads towards Osnabruck. We had no windscreen and the hood

therefore became valueless. Keating with characteristic determination

drove while I crouched in the bottom of the car. Both of us were

drenched by the time we reached the Kaiserhof Hotel at Osnabruck and

the car was in a pitiful state. We felt that Germany was giving us no

adequate welcome. Our host, a man of charming manners, told us that

the mobilisation orders were about to be issued, and that shortly the

deceitful Russian would be taught a lesson of value. We were asked, a

little eagerly, if England would assist, and those who listened were

obviously disappointed when we said we thought she would not interfere.

In the morning, as it still rained, we bought a large sheet of celluloid

as a substitute for the long-broken windscreen. At a later date we

bitterly regretted ever having seen or heard of this celluloid. As

the rain still fell we did not leave until the late afternoon, and

therefore did not get further than Minden when night fell. Both of us

were angry, chiefly owing to Keating’s total inability to read a route

in a Continental Guide, which was, in any case, quite inaccurate. Here

at Minden, where our ancestors had fought as allies with the Germans in

the year of victory, 1759, there were unmistakable signs of approaching

war. The hotel (Stadt London) was packed with officers and their families

eating a fond farewell lest on the morrow the worst might come. Dinner

passed to the clicking of heels and an orgy of ceremonial salutes by

officers who were about to bid good-bye to ‘review-order’ for years to

come.

In the streets the tramp of the troops, the clatter of horses’ hoofs, and

the rumble of iron-shod wheels continued throughout the night. While here

we learnt that Austria had on the day before declared war on Serbia, and

that soon the Emperor’s eagles would end all Balkan troubles for all time.

On Thursday the weather cleared and the sun shone. We passed through

Hanover, where we bought tiny silk flags of the German States with some

faint idea of showing the people that we did not really dislike them. In

Brunswick we ate sandwiches and drank very dark beer from huge china mugs

while we sat in an old oak-panelled hall with a high roof also of oak.

The bridge-keepers in Magdeburg took toll of us as we passed through

during the early afternoon in high hopes of reaching the capital early

in the evening. The road improved still more and there was but little

traffic to detain us. For long stretches our speed never dropped much

below sixty miles an hour. The gods seemed to be smiling. We forgot the

worries induced by the bad maps and the German food and became for a

space almost happy. When ten miles from Brandenburg I tried to pass a

large cart on the proper side and promptly ran into it, with disastrous

results to one of our front wheels and to both head lamps. After changing

the wheel we managed to proceed, only to find when six miles from Potsdam

and three miles from the nearest garage that we had no more petrol. At

the same time a tyre gently subsided and our troubles were complete. At

this point our very frayed tempers collapsed entirely and we each accused

the other of being responsible for the existence of Germany and all its

ills! Mercifully all troubles come to an end in time and we reached

Potsdam before ten o’clock.

The Hotel Stadt Königsberg where we stayed was also full of officers and

those dependent on them. A curious note of suppressed excitement was

obvious to strangers like ourselves, though at the time we were quite

unable to account for it. Serbia was surely too small to affect the

German officer caste to such an extent.

The next day, July 31, a Friday, we left the car under repair at a garage

in Potsdam and went by train to Johannisthal through Berlin. We saw the

directors of two leading German aeronautical firms—the Albatross and the

L.V.G.—only to find that in neither case could they undertake any work

of the nature we desired, as they were far too busy supplying aircraft

to the German and Austrian Governments. They would, they said, require

at least six months in which to complete any order. We, on the other

hand, had only six weeks to spare. The Albatross Company asked us to call

again on the following day in order that we might again meet the board of

directors. As nothing more could be done during the day we paid a mark

apiece and went into the public part of the aerodrome. No military guard

was to be seen save over the great Zeppelin shed, which was empty, its

usual tenant having flown to Posen the day before.

While we waited we saw eleven Albatross biplanes leave for Austria by

air, piloted by Austrian officers, each accompanied by a mechanic. The

presence of very obvious organisation and the entire absence of any

excitement or confusion impressed us both. Clearly German aeronautics

had left the purely experimental stage, and the aeroplane had become

as much a part of military life as had the motor-car years before. The

method of construction and the degree of finish of each machine showed

the existence of a settled industry. While until the beginning of the war

the average English aeroplane had the appearance of being the only one

of its type, a step in a series of experiments, the German aeroplane of

the time was as finished and complete as if it were one of a batch of a

thousand. All that was practically possible at that date was to be found

on these German machines which were so soon to test their prowess against

the English.

During dinner at Potsdam the head waiter stood in the middle of the

room and recited, amidst general enthusiasm, the speech the Kaiser had

delivered from the balcony of his palace in Berlin during the afternoon.

True patriotism was shown. The day had come and the training and hopes of

a century were to be put to the test at last.

After dinner we walked through the crowded streets and watched the

excited people snatch the single news sheets from the newsboys as they

passed along. Great masses of enthusiastic youth rushed along the streets

singing national songs, of which ‘Deutschland über Alles’ was the most

popular. The beautiful strains of the Austrian National Anthem were often

heard. Every officer who appeared from any direction was cheered loudly,

and even the police were not unpopular on this night of nights. We,

though we were obvious foreigners and quite possible Englishmen, were not

molested in any way. Long after we had gone to bed the noise continued

without intermission, until even Keating lost some of his joyous

enthusiasm for war in his greater and more immediate desire for sleep.

Shortly before noon on Saturday, August 1, we again went to Johannisthal,

this time by car. We arrived at the aerodrome at about half-past one

o’clock and decided that, as our interview with the directors of the

Albatross Company was sure to be short, we would have lunch on the way

back to Berlin. It was a foolish decision, as after events will show. We

found sentries at every entrance to the ground. By the small door leading

into the garden in front of the Albatross offices stood a German soldier

in the service dress of a regiment of the line. As we passed in he said

something long in German and seemed to wish to prevent our entry. Keating

smiled, which is not usual when one deals with German soldiers on duty,

and the sentry was too surprised to stop us. Once inside we were met by

the works manager, a Herr Huttney, who had learnt English in the United

States of America when acquiring merit in his early youth. He took us

before several of the directors of the company and we again talked of

the purchase of an aeroplane. There was an atmosphere of restraint and

suspicion which, in the light of later knowledge, was not unnatural. Now

we were told that no machine at all could be sold to us for many months,

as the army required them all; ‘even,’ they said, ‘Austria will not be

allowed to purchase more.’ Keating offered to buy an Albatross which we

knew to be in England. In reply we were shown a telegram from London

saying that aeroplane had just been commandeered by the Admiralty! This

incident was the first to bring home to us the possibility of Great

Britain joining in the new war. There was an unwieldiness about the

conversation that showed us they did not desire to do business with us,

and so after farewells we were conducted outside the boundaries of the

grounds by the works’ manager. Here to our amazement, and at the time

amusement, we found two soldiers, fully armed and rationed, standing by

the car. When I tried to start the engine, I was pressed back gently by

rifle and bayonet. Herr Huttney asked for reasons and was told, or so he

said, that an officer had been sent for and until his arrival we could

not leave. So, resignedly and hungrily, for it was by now four o’clock

and we had had no lunch, we sat in the car with Herr Huttney as company.

He, too, was not permitted to leave, if his own statement was to be

believed. For nearly two hours we sat here waiting for the officer who

did not come. At six o’clock we were moved, under instructions from an

N.C.O., to an open-air guard-room by the Zeppelin shed and just inside

the aerodrome fence. Here our wait continued, relieved a little by some

lager beer and leberwurst sandwiches, brought by the kindness of one of

our guard. At dusk we were taken by two policemen in plain clothes before

the officer commanding the aerodrome, who had an extemporised orderly

room in the smaller dirigible shed. With him were several subalterns of

infantry and of the flying section of the service. None of the officers

in the room admitted to any knowledge of English or French, and so Herr

Huttney, who was still in semi-arrest with us, had perforce to translate

all that was said on either side. A little later, while Keating was being

cross-examined, I asked, quite without malice, the officer nearest me

whether he knew London. Before he had had time to remember whether he

knew English or not he had answered clearly that Piccadilly Circus he did

not know but London it was so dull! After this slip he made no further

secret of his knowledge of English and talked freely.

The commandant, after asking our business and being told the truth, was

clearly sceptical. Finally, as he could get nothing from us but what was

true, he handed us over to the care of the two policemen. We were ordered

to proceed to the Central Police Office in Berlin, and into our car,

designed by the makers as a three-seater, we crowded Herr Huttney, the

two policemen, and ourselves. Keating drove, and an hour later we found

ourselves in a long dismal corridor three storeys up in Berlin’s Scotland

Yard. I was in the last stage of depression, as Herr Huttney had just

told us that he feared we should not get less than five years’ detention

as potential spies. In addition we were hungry and cold. After a short

wait we were taken before a civilian official who, with the utmost

courtesy, cross-examined us. We were searched and all our belongings from

my German word-books to the remnants of a sandwich were laid solemnly

on the table. Some tiny films I had were developed rapidly somewhere in

the building. After an anxious examination, lasting perhaps half an hour

and which was conducted in a language of which we did not know a word,

we were released with the advice to leave Berlin with as little delay

as possible. As we left the room the senior official said that he hoped

our respective countries would remain friendly for the salvation of the

entire world.

We stayed the night at a quiet hotel in a street parallel to the Unter

den Linden and persuaded Herr Huttney to dine with us. He was obviously

ill at ease and left us as soon as could be done with courtesy. Even

our experience of the afternoon had not brought home to us any real

understanding of the true situation. We still thought that we had been

arrested as a matter of German habit, and that all would be well in a

week or so when the dangers of war had again passed by. Our German guest

was clearly, though we did not know it at the time, unwilling to be seen

in public with us. He left, and weeks later we heard as a matter of

rumour that he had met his death at the hands of the authorities under

suspicion of giving assistance to enemy spies! It may not be so or we may

not have been the spies in question. One hopes not.

At the Embassy we managed to borrow some money from the military attaché

and were given a passport on which, unfortunately, both our names were

entered. We were told that if we wished for freedom we had better

endeavour to leave Germany at once. When we said we intended to motor

to the Dutch frontier some doubt was shown as to whether we should be

permitted to travel far. Nobody doubted for a moment what the end would

be. War must come and England would be in it.

At eleven o’clock we went to a garage and filled the car with everything

necessary for a non-stop journey to Holland, as we realised that a

stoppage on the road would probably become permanent. The chief trouble

was petrol, as an order restricting the sale was expected at any moment.

Consequently, while Keating talked to the old caretaker by means of my

phrase-book, I collected petrol cans and put them under the dickey seat.

Then, in order that the car might not be seized, we drove away from the

garage and left the car outside the hotel for the rest of the night.

Everybody, including the police, was so excited that no complaint was

made.

This settled, we went into a large restaurant organised on American

lines, where one paid a fixed sum on entering and then helped oneself to

any of dozens of different small dishes arranged on stands. This place

was thronged with people, who, with Teutonic thoroughness, did not permit

their excitement of the moment to interfere with their meals. At first we

were shy of speech, fearing our English tongue would cause trouble. After

a space we began to talk and then, to our amazement, a man at the same

table asked if we were English and, hearing the truth, promptly became

embarrassingly pleasant and insisted on drinking our national health in

dark lager. Others to whom we spoke also showed signs of pleasure and

for a moment or two we were popular. Then for the first time we learnt

how keen the German people were at that time on an effective naval and

military alliance with England. From day to day on our way to the coast

we were to find this the general feeling.

We left the hotel at five on the morning of Sunday, August 2, and drove

out of Berlin by the Unter den Linden. The weather was perfect, and with

consequent optimism we hoped to reach Holland before nightfall. No stop

was to be made until the Dutch frontier had been passed.

In Potsdam, as we passed through, all was calm. Patriotism is very

tiring. The streets were deserted and we drove through without notice.

All went well with us. The sun was shining and the road, at this stage

of the journey, was good. The next forty kilometres passed at the rate

of one a minute and before seven o’clock we were in Brandenburg. Here

ill-fortune again caught us up. As we crossed the bridge over the Havel

a tyre burst. We had no spare inner tube and so Keating went to a

garage near by in order to get replacements. His speech revealed him a

foreigner, the news spread rapidly and by the time he returned to the car

a large crowd had assembled round us. At first we thought their interest

to be mere curiosity, but we soon saw that it was underlain by suspicion.

To avoid them, and in order to change tyres quickly, we drove the car

into a narrow courtyard near by and began work. The crowd increased and

showed signs of following us into the yard. At this point we closed the

yard gates, which were of iron scroll work covered with plate glass

through which our movements could be watched.

The mob still increased and its attitude was threatening. A man whose

house abutted on the yard, anxious as to the safety of his property, sent

for the police. Shortly afterwards a sergeant arrived who, luckily, spoke

English according to American practice. He had, he told us immediately on

arrival, been in San Francisco during the earthquake, hence his knowledge

of our language. From him we learnt that the crowd in the road believed

us to be Russian spies and were taking measures to prevent our escape. At

our request he sent for an officer, to whom we explained our position.

Though the latter showed no signs of enthusiasm he believed our statement

after examining our passport and driving licence. He then left, telling

his sergeant to see us out of the town as soon as we were ready. After

the police interview the crowd melted away and we suffered no further

inconvenience.

By this time we were hungry and asked our friend the sergeant if he could

buy us food. A boy was sent for sausage sandwiches and beer. We drank

with the sergeant to the health of Great Britain and Germany and to the

confusion of the rest of the world. It is easy to admire a nation when

one is at its mercy. It is easier still when one realises the magnificent

patriotism and unity of purpose of that same nation. When, the tyre

fitted, it was time to leave, we endeavoured to pay the small boy for the

food he had brought, only to be stopped by the sergeant, who said we were

his guests and that he would not like us to leave with a bad opinion of

his country! Firm friends, we left that sergeant with deep regret, as by

now we knew our passage through the country was not to be pleasant.

At Magdeburg we were stopped by the Customs after crossing the bridge

over the Elbe. We were made in full glare of the public eye to

demonstrate the innocence and inadequacy of our wardrobe. Here, too,

the roll of celluloid bought at Osnabruck came under suspicion. The

police argued that it could have no possible use on the car and that

it must be part of a photographic apparatus, the rest of which we were

wilfully concealing. After Keating’s wonderful use of my incomprehensible

phrase-book and many vivid gesticulations from myself, the police

pretended they understood and reluctantly let us travel onwards.

From this place onwards our trouble intensified. So long as we continued

to move and showed no hesitation all was well, but no sooner did we

stop to examine a signpost at cross roads than we would be surrounded

by an excited mob of men and women armed to the teeth with muskets that

appeared to date from Waterloo and with spades, picks, and pitchforks of

a later date but of no less sanguinary appearance. It was nervous work

endeavouring to explain ourselves to the local interpreter, probably the

parish priest, while any moment the varied contents of any of these guns

might shatter such brains as worry had left us.

From Hanover onwards we were stopped at practically every village by

patrols of the type described above. That these posts were installed

officially was obvious from the attempt at a uniform worn by most of

these men. At each place our papers were examined laboriously by the

padre or the leading shopkeeper, in each case without much enlightenment,

for in accordance with British insularity our passport was entirely in

English.

From these causes our average speed dropped to eight miles an hour, and

our nerves began to show signs of weariness. One never knew from one

moment to another when we might be detained and possibly killed in a fit

of misplaced enthusiasm. We had heard, how I cannot say, that no motoring

was permitted after dark. Consequently, as when darkness fell we had

reached Minden, we decided to stay the night at the Hotel Stadt London.

This for the second time and under such different conditions. On this day

there was doubt whether we should reach home again for years or, if an

easy accident came, perhaps never. The hotel was crowded with officers,

this time mostly in service kit. The dining-room rang with excited talk

as to the future and all were flushed with thoughts of the days to come.

As we dined we sent for a police officer, in order that by reporting

ourselves in time we should avoid delay in leaving on the following

morning. An officer arrived so speedily that we could not fail to realise

that he had been in waiting. We asked if we might leave at dawn. He said

courteously that as the Military Commandant wished to see us at eight

o’clock next day it would not be possible for us to get away before

breakfast. With courtesy he refused to drink with us and with courtesy he

bowed himself out. He was so pleasant that we felt that our affairs had

become more serious during the day.

Shortly after two o’clock I was awakened by the sound of marching and

the rumbling of wagons. From that hour onwards until dawn battalion

after battalion passed on its way to entrain for some battle front as

yet unrevealed to us. Shortly after dawn troops ceased to pass for some

hours and we were able to sleep again. During the wakeful period we each

discovered, as we found on comparing notes next day, that a sentry was on

duty in the corridor outside our rooms.

The next morning we reported to the Commandant at his office, taking the

car with us in case we got immediate leave to proceed. When we arrived we

found the Commandant engaged and we had to wait in an outer room with a

schoolmaster who had been brought in to act as our interpreter. While we

sat here admiring a large engraving of the picture of the German troops

greeting Admiral Seymour’s seamen in China (1900) hung on the wall over

the door to the Commandant’s room, an old man was brought in by two

policemen. He was crying bitterly in the hopeless, dreary manner of the

aged. His sobs were painful to hear and we asked our interpreter who he

might be and if we could do anything to assist him. The answer was ‘No,

as he is a Russian spy who is charged with being concerned in an attempt

to dynamite the railway bridge over the river. He will, it is undoubted,

be shot!’ The charge may or may not have been true, but that afternoon

the old man was shot after a summary trial. It made Keating and myself

less optimistic as to our chances.

After a short wait we were brought before the Commandant, who listened

to our story with courtesy and with obvious trust. We said nothing about

the reason of our visit. The Commandant was disposed to believe that we

were not spies, and would, I think, have let us go on our way had not

another officer in the room interfered. He asked us rather roughly why

at such a disturbed time we came to Germany. Keating then explained that

we wished to buy an aeroplane. This revelation altered everything, and

the Commandant, after talking earnestly for some minutes with his brother

officer, told us, none too willingly, we thought, to return to our hotel

and not to leave it until permission was given. In the meantime he would

wire to the British Embassy for confirmation of our story. We now gave up

hope, for we knew it was extremely unlikely that the Embassy would ever

receive the wire.

We walked sadly back to the hotel, leaving the car in the charge of

the police officials. Regretfully we thought of all the beautiful wars

breaking out in every direction in which it was now unlikely we would be

able to take part. War is inspiring and attractive to all who have not

fought.

At the hotel we sat moodily by a large window looking into the street and

drank lager beer while we watched battalion after battalion pass on their

way to entrain for the front. Three days before these men had either

been on reserve in civil occupations or had been wearing the picturesque

uniforms of peace. Very few of them had then known what the service dress

was like and none had worn it. Now, in strict accordance with the plans

of forty years, each man in the great striking force was fully equipped

for the greatest campaign in history.

One point struck us unfavourably, and this was the painful newness of the

boots of yellow undressed leather worn by all. Later, we discovered that

this too was a sign of forethought. Each man had in his kit the boots

worn and made comfortable by him in times of peace, and the new boots

were being worn in these first days that they might be in some manner

broken in before action was joined. Had the troops worn their old boots

they would, when footsore, have had no means of getting relief other

than taking the boots off and resting their feet. On the other hand,

wearing the new boots first, weariness was greatly reduced by changing

into the older boots. Such a matter as this, small in itself, may mean

the difference between defeat and victory.

Shortly before lunch a Lieutenant Kellerman of a reserve unit of Garrison

Artillery called to see us. He said that he had been told that two

Englishmen were detained in the town, and that as he admired the English

and spoke our language fluently he had come to see what assistance

he might be able to render. We were glad to see him. It relieved the

monotony, and also he would be able to translate the mystic newspapers to

us. But that was not his mission. He talked of England and of America.

All good Germans seem to have travelled in America either North or South!

It was some little time before we realised that most of his questions

were asked with other reasons than that of benevolence. He said that a

diary of our travels would be interesting in years to come. Surely we

had kept one? And photographs, too, what pleasure they would give to our

friends in England when we reached home! But as our visitor would neither

drink nor smoke—what honest German does not drink and smoke?—with us we

did not care to answer his questions quite as simply as he would have

wished. After a space he left us and returned no more. He may have meant

well, but in the light of after events it is more probable that he was

intended to trap us into some unconsciously guilty admission.

At lunch time the Commandant appeared. He told us that no reply had come

from Berlin and that he feared we should find it difficult to get away.

His pleasant face showed that he really felt sorry and that it was not

pretence. At his request we lunched with him, though the conversation was

of necessity spasmodic, since neither party spoke the other’s tongue. Yet

it was a kindly thought, which counts for much at times of tension. He,

in common with most officers of the garrison, lunched daily at the Hotel

Stadt London, and our presence at his table went far to make our position

more comfortable. The glances of suspicion from other officers in the

room died away, and we felt less like escaped convicts than we had during

the morning.

Through the kindly offices of a neighbour who spoke English the

Commandant asked if we thought England would take part in the war. We

said that we did not think our country would interfere, as at that time

we imagined the opening war to concern France, Russia, and Germany

alone. The Commandant gravely said that he was not optimistic, for he did

not think that England would stand by inactive. War would be bad for both

countries. He implied that Germany had for many years desired an alliance

with England. United the two nations could sweep the world. This was the

view taken by many to whom we spoke during the journey and illustrates

in some degree the aims of Modern Germany. The picture of an uncivilised

world waiting for enlightenment by the Apostles of Culture in the form of

German Army Corps is pathetic to us, but it is, or was, doubtless very

vivid to sincere German officers.

At four o’clock we were sent for by the Commandant, who said that no news

had arrived from Berlin, but that on his own responsibility he would

allow us to leave the town. He signed a statement saying that we had been

examined and were permitted to proceed, as we thought this might help

us on our way. As he shook hands he said, as our interpreter explained,

‘Travel, travel, always travel until the frontier is passed!’

Exasperated by the numerous delays, and apprehensive that our stay in

Germany might attain some manner of permanency if further hesitation

marked our path, we drove with great speed when on the open road. But

rapid progress was not continuous. Two days before we had found progress

slow owing to civilian patrols in villages and at cross-roads, but

now the vigilance of the German people seemed to have doubled. It was

necessary to slow down some distance from these posts, if one desired to

avoid over-zealous shots. Five miles was perhaps the longest stage over

which our journey was uninterrupted.

In some villages the people were pleasant and believed our statements, in

others we were received with suspicion that even our signed note from the

Commandant at Minden did not entirely allay.

But nothing worse than mental discomfort came to us until we reached

Oldendorf, a large village some thirty-five kilometres from Osnabruck.

The road was barricaded half a mile short of the first houses, and we

were held up at this point until the ‘Hauptmann’ arrived to inspect

us. While we waited a tall thin man, wearing over his ordinary clothes

a long blue smock, apparently a farm labourer by trade, harangued the

crowd feverishly, gesticulating the while with a pitchfork. He did not

seem to like us. Keating, whose spirits were still high, laughed at him

and made matters worse. The oration had no immediate effect, for when

the Hauptmann, a little fat man in a bright blue uniform, had seen us

we were permitted to drive on to the village. Here, at the beginning of

the main street, we found another barricade and a larger crowd. As we

were about to pass the obstruction the man with the pitchfork arrived

on a bicycle in a perfect delirium of rage. He accused us of something

inexplicable and the crowd at once dragged us from the car. I was made to

walk in state with the village policeman, who had just appeared, while

Keating drove the car slowly behind us. An English-speaking German came

with me and explained that we were to be examined by the Burgomaster at

the Town Hall. I had almost reached sanctuary, accompanied by a large and

curious crowd, when the fanatic with the pitchfork again tore up on his

bicycle and, purple with rage, accused us of, literally, ‘making plans

of citadels and photographing the country.’ At once the crowd turned

against me. There was an ugly rush, and I was as near experiencing the

fate of De Witt as I shall ever be in this life. Before I was more than

half-throttled the policeman managed to get me into the Town Hall, where

I could in comparative security listen to the howls of the mob outside.

Keating, for some reason—perhaps because he always laughed—escaped the

full wrath of the mob, though his passenger spat at him, and was brought

in safely.

The Burgomaster was charming and, what mattered far more, was possessed

of infinite discernment. He examined our baggage, now falling into ruin,

and the car, in public, in a gallant attempt to allay suspicion. Despite

this, I firmly believe that the villagers of Oldendorf will believe to

their dying day that we were two anarchists of Russian extraction. After

an anxious hour we were allowed to drive away. At this village, the day

before, two Russians, disguised in women’s clothing, had been dragged

from a car and shot on the spot.

We had hoped to reach Osnabruck before dark, but it was actually ten

o’clock when we finally arrived at the hotel. At the entrance to the

town, which we reached shortly after nine o’clock, we were taken in

charge by a military patrol. But the police alone could give us the

necessary permission to travel onwards.

So, attended by a N.C.O., we drove to the head police office at

Osnabruck. Again we were made to spread our belongings on the floor and

explain each scrap of paper. The deadly sheet of celluloid we offered

to the police in the hopes of ending the recurrent trouble, but with no

effect. Full of suspicion as to its uses though they might be, yet they

would not take it.

We were delayed here about twenty minutes before we were given permission

to stay at the Kaiserhof Hotel for the night and to leave Osnabruck

early on the following morning. As we left the office our car was held

up by the passage of several hundred Russian workmen who had been placed

under arrest on the outbreak of war and who were now being taken to an

internment camp. Dejected and hopeless they moved miserably through

a hissing and booing crowd to the prison which was to be their home

until peace came again. Such is discipline in Germany that half a dozen

policemen sufficed to keep the mob, ever ready to strike, at bay.

At the Kaiserhof Hotel we were greeted with singular charm by the

proprietor, who, though a possible future enemy, did not show any

suspicion or displeasure. Nay, rather did he go out of his way to make us

truly comfortable, he himself superintending the cooking of our belated

dinner.

While we ate there sat at a table near by a party of German students, who

with much noise sang patriotic verses and cheered lustily the names of

national heroes while they steadily drank tankard after tankard of beer.

After a space they began to take interest in us. Glancing from time to

time at our table they talked excitedly of ‘Englanders’ and, from the few

words we could understand, of our navy. I was very tired, and under the

impression that they desired to pick a quarrel, I went to bed to escape

trouble. Keating, on the other hand, scenting an immediate if a minor

war, refused to move and did not reach his room until the early hours of

the morning. It appears that far from desiring to annoy us they wished

us to join them. This Keating did and a short conversation in French

followed. The use of this language was quickly banned as unpatriotic and

a curious but wonderful version of English was substituted. They were

under the impression that England was about to become Germany’s ally.

Thus combined the two nations were to dominate the world in the manner

indicated to us by several others during our travels. These views, so

soon to fade, served to create a temporary friendship between Keating and

the students, which ended shortly before three in the morning with the

joint humming of ‘God Save the King,’ because, as they said, ‘without

words it is the National Anthem of both the related countries.’ It was a

happy evening, in that it formed so great a contrast to other nights of

the same week.

The next morning we left on the last lap of our journey through Germany

rather late, slightly after eleven o’clock, owing to the encouraging

friendliness of the previous night. This day was August 4 and in honour

of its high destiny was one of sunlit splendour. Our innkeeper, in the

smallness of his bill and his obvious readiness to give credit until the

end of the war in case our money had run short, showed that some Germans

are not devoid of the kindlier instincts of humanity. Human nature is the

same the world over by whatever title the races may be labelled.

With usual delays from road patrols we passed slowly through Lottë,

Westerkappeln, and Höveringhausen. In Ibbenburgen we were held up by

a long patriotic procession, chiefly of children dressed brilliantly

in white, and carrying banners decorated in some cases with religious

symbols and in some with the armorial device of Westphalia. As they

walked they sang, with the softness of childhood, songs of the

countryside.

It was pleasant when in the midst of our worries to listen to the beat

of childish feet and the echo of childish voices between the lines of

high narrow houses of this quiet Westphalian village. Curious incidents,

unimportant in themselves, remain in one’s memory for all time.

We had intended to drive out of the country through Bentheim, the same

route by which we entered. But when the police examined us at Rheine,

though they showed no desire to detain us, they told us that we must

divert our course through Burgsteinfurt and leave Germany by Gronau,

reaching Enschede in Holland. This meant a journey increased by forty

miles, a serious matter under the then existing critical conditions.

The first few miles out of Rheine passed by with surprising ease.

Then as we passed along a straight stretch of road close to Ochtrup

we were stopped by a patrol standing or rather reeling in front of a

public-house. These half-dozen men, bored with inaction, had improved

the shining hour by drinking beer until all the world seemed changed.

They were armed heavily with ancient rifles, each obviously loaded. Our

unfortunate belongings were again dragged into view and a hilarious

examination followed, the while two of the more drunken men tried to

show their belief that we were good fellows by kissing us both with

beery enthusiasm. Finally, we were allowed to go amidst their drunken

cheers. We had covered about half a mile when several bullets whistled

by, despatched by our late friends as a further token of their joyous

sporting instincts! None hit us and we passed on into Ochtrup, where the

most amazing incident of all befell us. We were taken into the Town Hall

and were passed as unsuspicious when, suddenly, the manner of our captors

changed from smiles to frowns. A chauffeur had arrived who swore that he

recognised us as two suspects who had escaped from custody at Buckedorf,

a village some miles on the Berlin side of Minden. Nothing could shake

him in his accusation and things looked unutterably black for us. Tempers

are hasty when war is the common occupation, and sentences of death at

the worst are only ‘regrettable mistakes’ when too much haste has been

used. Some open packets of cartridges on the table added nothing to the

pleasure of our feelings. A woman, who alone could speak English with any

fluency, was brought in to translate and she, too, did little to improve

our position. From her attitude one supposes she had met incivility in

England during her visit to our country.

Suddenly it struck us that perhaps the man had seen us at Minden, and as

we had a pass from that town all would be well if we could convince him

of his mistake. To our joy he at once admitted that he was wrong and we

were permitted to leave.

On arrival at Gronau we found that the car must remain in Germany, so

we drove to the station in order to find out whether trains still ran.

Here, to our surprise, we were again arrested by the Customs authorities

and were hauled before the Burgomaster and some local councillors. We

had as translator a German-American who, unpleasant in his prosperous

appearance, suggested we should answer the questions in a way prompted

by him. This we refused, as the object of lying did not appear clear to

us. It was well, as later it appeared that one at least of those present

could speak English with ease.

At this stage in the journey appeared one of those amazing coincidences

that occur as one passes through life. As our names were given in the

course of the written evidence, an old councillor asked me in English if

I came from Lancashire. When I admitted this he said that forty years

before he had been working in that county and during that time he had

been befriended by a man of my name. It appeared on a further description

that this good Samaritan was closely related to me! This fortunate

incident had, I am sure, some effect on our position.

In the end the Burgomaster telephoned to the G.O.C. at Munster, putting

our case as favourably as possible, and describing us as Americans.

Permission was given by this higher authority for our release. A local

mill owner who had given us every assistance garaged the car, and

undertook to take care of it. Thus did we part in a friendly mood.

An hour later we entered Enschede after a long argument with the Customs

officer, who thought us too dirty to be respectable. Next day found us at

the Hague, where, in our rags but happy, we dined at the Hôtel des Indes.

Here we read the _Times_ and heard of the declaration of war. That night

we crossed to Harwich.

* * * * *

_Note._—Keating on arrival in town applied for and was given a commission

in the Royal Flying Corps. Later he transferred to the Irish Guards. On

January 20, 1915, he was killed in France during bombing practice by

the premature explosion of a bomb which he was using for demonstration

purposes. So ended a life of enthusiasm. The world lost a very gallant

gentleman in Harry Sheehy Keating. Yet

At the door of life, at the gate of breath

There are worse things waiting for men than death.

_JAN ISSEL._

In the month of August 1914 Mr. Haseldine of Culme House in South Devon

was as clearly persuaded as every other patriotic Briton that we had got

to beat the Germans, cost what it might, and what it might chance to

cost him individually he well knew, his only son being an officer in the

Guards. So he was scarcely disposed to sympathise with a man who, having

no less than four sons, made it a great grievance that the youngest of

them was threatening to enlist.

‘What do you expect me to say to the lad, Issel?’ he asked of the ruddy,

grey-bearded tenant who had come to beg his aid. ‘I can’t tell him he is

wrong if he wants to fight for his country.’

‘Aw, ’tidden that, Squire,’ returned Farmer Issel, shaking his head. ‘I

don’t b’lieve as Jan feels a call to go an’ fight no more’n what his

brothers du; but a’s that quare an’ opinionated us can’t make nothin’ of

un. Can’t spare un nayther, with harvest comin’ on an’ all, that’s the

trewth.’

It was certainly the truth that labour was scarce and that the moment

was ill chosen for withdrawing a pair of strong arms from Bratton

Farm. Moreover, those were the early days of the war, when it had not

yet become apparent that England must raise and equip a huge force.

Therefore, after some further parley, Mr. Haseldine promised that he

would give young John Issel a word or two of sound advice, and, with

that end in view, he suggested to his daughter Mildred, a few hours

later, that they should make Bratton Farm the object of their customary

afternoon ride.

It was beautiful, hot weather, promising well for the approaching

harvest, and as Mr. Haseldine jogged through the lanes, on either side

of which were broad fields of ripening oats and barley, he remarked to

his companion, with a laugh and a sigh, that some people didn’t know when

they were well off. Patriotism was right enough, and he would be the last

to discourage it; yet before a man decided to plunge into all the trials

and miseries of a campaign he ought at least to make sure that his duty

did not lie nearer home.

And something of that sort was what the Squire presently said to a slim,

dark-eyed young man who, turning round at the sound of the horses’ hoofs,

raised his arms from the gate over which he had been leaning and touched

his hat. Jan Issel listened respectfully, appeared to be a little

troubled, and had no very definite answer to make. What could be gathered

was that his mother had been pressing him hard, that he did not want to

vex her—nor yet nobody else—but that he reckoned he would have to go all

the same. Oh, not until after harvest, for sure; he had given a promise

to that effect and would keep it.

‘Quite right, my boy,’ said Mr. Haseldine, gathering up his reins.

‘Think it well over; don’t be in a hurry. You may be wanted at the front

by-and-by, and so may your brothers; we don’t any of us know yet what

lies before us. But for the present it seems to me that you’re more

wanted where you are. Now, Mildred, if you’ll wait here for me, I’ll be

with you again in a few minutes. I must just see Issel and tell him about

several things that I forgot to mention this morning.’

Thus Miss Haseldine was left in the company of a youth of whose existence

she had hitherto been but vaguely aware, but whose handsome face and

great sad eyes made appeal to her. She began to question him, and, either

because her pretty face and kindly blue eyes made appeal to him or

because of some subtle suggestion of sympathy in her voice, he spoke with

a good deal more ease and openness than he had shown in replying to her

father. It was not only the outbreak of war, he confessed, that had put

it into his head to take up soldiering. Many and many a time before had

he thought of that way of escape from Bratton—because it was from Bratton

that he yearned to escape. No, he hadn’t no trouble, without you could

call it trouble to be uneasy in your mind; only he felt as if he must get

away.

‘I couldn’t explain it to you, miss; I haven’t no power o’ language.

Happen I’m unrasonable, as mother says. Dick and Tom and Bob they don’t

ask no better’n to plough an’ sow an’ reap year in, year out; but with me

’tis different. Reckon as I’d go mazed if I was to stop home for always.’

‘I know what is the matter with you,’ said Miss Haseldine, smiling;

‘you’re bored.’

Well, that might be. The word was not included in Jan’s slender

vocabulary, but perhaps he was capable of the sensation. Miss Haseldine

told him that she was and that a vast number of persons were similarly

afflicted. The recognised remedy was work; but, for obvious reasons, that

was not applicable to his case. How about reading as a diversion? Did he

ever open a book?

This chance shot unexpectedly scored. Jan’s big brown eyes lightened up

as he answered that he loved nothing in the world so much as books to

read. Unfortunately, he had exhausted the literature of Bratton Farm,

which consisted of the Bible, sundry theological works, ‘Pilgrim’s

Progress,’ an anthology entitled ‘Pearls from the Poets,’ and a few

dilapidated volumes of the _Family Herald_.

Miss Haseldine said she could introduce him to a rather wider circle of

writers than that. ‘Come up to the house after dinner this evening and

I’ll lend you all the books you care to carry away.’

Jan was almost as grateful to the young lady as a starving man would

have been for a loaf of bread; yet it was perhaps rather her looks and

her voice than her kind offer that compelled his gratitude. Hitherto

nobody had understood him—which was the less surprising because he had

some difficulty in understanding himself—and he had observed a general

disposition to treat him with the indulgence accorded to the mentally

deficient. But here at last was a beautiful, beneficent being who not

only did not call him a fool but clearly showed, without actually saying

so, that she entered into his feelings and shared them. He had often seen

her before, in church and elsewhere, but did not remember ever to have

heard her speak. After she and her father had ridden away, he dropped

his elbows upon the gate once more and for some time thought about her

dreamily, with a pleasantly warmed heart, wondering why he had never

before noticed her physical beauty. Then he stretched himself and strode

off to get the cows in for milking.

Mildred Haseldine, if scarcely beautiful, was as pretty as golden hair,

forget-me-not blue eyes, and neat little features could make her.

Beneficent she might fairly be called, inasmuch as she was always glad

to do a good turn to her neighbours, and this farm lad, with his odd

craving for mental nourishment and his rebellion against the monotony

of agricultural life, interested her. So as soon as she reached home

she laid the library shelves under contribution, selecting ‘Ivanhoe,’

Tennyson’s Poems, Carlyle’s ‘Past and Present’ and Fitchett’s ‘Deeds that

Won the Empire,’ as being a sufficiently comprehensive batch to begin

with, and handed the volumes to her maid Judith, with instructions that

they were to be given to young John Issel, if he should call for them.

She observed that Judith blushed; but the circumstance made no impression

upon her, Judith’s blushes being frequent and for the most part devoid of

cause.

As a matter of fact, Judith Combe had some excuse for exhibiting

self-consciousness at the sound of Jan Issel’s name. Not very much, it

is true; for in her class of life the fact of ‘walking out’ with a young

man on Sunday afternoons is not held to commit either of the walkers to

subsequent matrimony, and certainly Jan did not consider himself in any

way pledged to Judy Combe, whom he had chosen merely because, like his

brothers and everybody else, he had to have a female companion of some

sort. He liked the gentle, demure lass, was indifferently aware that

she was nice-looking (she was in reality decidedly prettier than Miss

Haseldine), and even supposed that he might marry her some day. But that,

of course, would only be if he should stay at Bratton, instead of going

out into the wide world—a contingency which he never cared to contemplate.

An access of shyness led him to ask for Judith when he went up to the

great house that evening; but he was just a trifle disappointed when

she joined him, bearing the promised armful of literature, and when he

realised that he was not to see his benefactress. Nothing, however,

forbade him to talk about her, nor did he say much about anybody or

anything else during an interview which took place by starlight in the

stable-yard. Judith, who was greatly attached to her mistress, was as

laudatory as could be wished, if not particularly informing. Miss Mildred

was always doing kind things; so Judith did not think it strange that she

should lend books to Jan Issel if he wanted them; though it was perhaps

rather strange that he should want them. She timidly intimated as much,

but received no answer. It was, of course, impossible to explain to Judy

Combe what the printed page meant to one who was consumed with curiosity

respecting the world in which we dwell and who had no opportunities of

coming into contact with a verbal interpreter. It would likewise have

been difficult to bring home to her the motives that such a man might

have for adopting the profession of arms; so that subject also was

left untouched. For the rest, Jan was eager to say good-night, being

still more eager to discover what Miss Mildred thought him capable of

appreciating.

Miss Mildred, it may be conjectured, had not given a great deal of

thought to the matter; but she bestowed quite as much pleasure upon her

_protégé_ as if she had. That night and on several successive nights

Jan sat up, devouring the volumes by the light of a single candle

long after all the other inmates of the farm were asleep. ‘Ivanhoe,’

which was pretty plain sailing, delighted him, as did also Fitchett’s

stirring and admirably related yarns. If he could not always make out

what Tennyson was driving at, he loved the rhythm and melody of his

verse, just as he loved the sonorous grandeur of certain chapters in

Isaiah and Ecclesiastes, the meaning of which was completely hidden from

him. In like manner thousands of people derive genuine enjoyment from

listening to a symphony, although they are ignorant of the structure

of such compositions and cannot really follow them. But, oddly enough,

it was with Carlyle that Jan was best pleased. The bygone abuses and

social anomalies against which ‘Past and Present’ thunders naturally

said nothing to him, nor could he trace much connection between them

and the chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond. It must also be admitted

that he skipped a good many pages. What roused him to enthusiasm was

not the writer’s theme but his mastery of language and the magnificent,

disdainful carelessness with which he displayed it, as though feeling

himself big enough to be independent of all rules. Jan Issel, it must

be supposed, possessed the literary sense—which indeed, like every

other artistic sense, is inborn, not to be acquired. When he went

to Culme House to return the books and beg for more, he tried, not

over-successfully, to express to Miss Mildred (who received him this

time and took him into the library) the intensity of his admiration for

a philosopher who is commonly considered to be above the heads of the

simple.

‘A girt man, miss,’ he said—‘a powerful man!’

‘Oh, yes,’ agreed Mildred, surprised and amused, ‘he’s—picturesque.

Hardly at his best in “Past and Present,” though. I’ll lend you his

“French Revolution,” which is much more interesting.’

Most leisured readers require a considerable length of time to assimilate

that work; Jan, who had practically no leisure between sunrise and

sunset, got through it in a week. He read it, as he read most works,

with only a dim comprehension but with great contentment. Contentment,

in fact, was the blessing bestowed upon him by Miss Haseldine’s happy

inspiration; so that he spoke no more of joining the Army, while she

was rewarded by the respectful thanks of his parents. From Jan himself

she received something more than thanks and respect. It was, no doubt,

natural enough that his imagination, fired by the novels and plays

which she prescribed as occasional alternatives to historical study,

should clothe her with the attributes of a heroine of romance. His

contentment, for that matter, was perhaps as much the outcome of talks

with Miss Mildred as of communings with authors who by themselves might

rather have tended to increase the latent disquietude which they were

supposed to have allayed. These talks became frequent during the autumn

weeks, occasion for them being willingly supplied by a young lady who

could not help finding Jan Issel unusual and interesting. He came out,

every now and then, with the quaintest, the most original, the most

poetical remarks, and if his hearer sometimes had a little inward laugh,

she was very careful not to let her features betray her; because his

sensitiveness was no less manifest than his timid devotion. To inspire

devotion—especially when it is timid—is seldom disagreeable to any young

lady; so Miss Mildred often overtook Jan in the lanes or summoned him to

the house; and this was really kind of her, seeing that she, who had so

much to fill her thoughts just then, might well have been excused if she

had forgotten all about a queer, dreamy farm lad. For those were the days

in which the long battle of the Aisne was developing, and although her

brother Frank had thus far escaped death or wounds, bad news of him and

others might come at any moment.

In Jan’s thoughts there was not much room for the war and its

vicissitudes. There would have been no room in them at all for Judith

Combe if she had not enjoyed the proverbial privilege of living near the

rose, which entailed the more dubious one of hearing the rose extolled

without intermission during those Sunday walks which at an earlier period

had been so largely taciturn. But Judith was a long-suffering little

soul, and it was only after much hesitation that she ventured to ask:

‘Bain’t ’ee gettin’ tu fond of her, Jan?’

Jan reddened all over his face and neck. ‘Tu fond o’ Miss Mildred! What

be dramin’ about then? Do ’ee think a dog can get tu fond o’ the sun?

You’m talkin’ proper nonsense, Judy.’

Nevertheless, Judith’s words came to him as a shock and a revelation,

over which he pondered for hours afterwards. At first he was ashamed

of his audacity and felt as if he had been guilty of some unpardonable

outrage; but by degrees he arrived at a different view of the matter.

What if he did love a human goddess? When all was said, he could not help

it. The veriest cur, according to his own homely metaphor, may bask in

the sun, and she could not be displeased by what would certainly never be

revealed to her. It was his secret, which he was surely free to cherish,

without the least shadow of hope, much as certain sixteenth-century poets

cherished a passion for Queen Elizabeth, or said they did. But the fact

of being without shadow of hope—as of course he was—did not preclude

indulgence in ecstatic visions. His mobile imagination enabled him to see

himself earning literary renown (like the peasant Robert Burns, perhaps),

rising by virtue of the same to a position of admitted equality with the

highest in the land and stripping the laurels from his brow to lay them

at Mildred’s feet. Such things could not come to pass, and he knew that

they could not; yet he liked to picture them and might plead that his

fancies were as harmless as his love.

Harmless both may have been; only both contributed to bring about a

return of his old restlessness. He was now embarrassed in conversing with

Miss Mildred; he could not get rid of a haunting dread that she might

suspect his sentiments (she was perhaps not so far from suspecting them

as he thought), and then how would he ever dare to look her in the face

again? More and more evident was it to him that he must leave the farm,

that he would have to go some day and that he had better go soon. Added

to this, his brothers were beginning to talk about donning khaki. Without

saying anything to their father, they discussed the question amongst

themselves and agreed that if ‘th’ old war’ was going to last another

year, as the newspapers said it was, they could not decently keep out of

it. It was impossible for all of them to go, that was certain; but one,

or even two, of them might. The youngest they excluded, not only because

‘mother wouldn’t niver part with ’un,’ but because he was understood

to have been cured of military hankerings. Thus it became plain that

procrastination would only place fresh obstacles in Jan’s path.

It was on a grey morning in October that he was accosted by a recruiting

sergeant at Exeter, whither he had been sent to dispose of some steers,

and there was no need to impress upon him that Flanders was the right

place for a likely young chap without encumbrances. He intimated that

that was his own view and asked whether he could have a couple of days

‘to wind up like.’ Three, if he chose, the pleased sergeant replied; but

he said two would be enough. They might even be excessive, he thought,

for although old Mrs. Issel was a fond mother, she had a ‘tarrible power

o’ spache’ when aggrieved; but he could not go off to the wars without

taking leave of Miss Mildred, and he wanted to make sure of a farewell

audience. More with that end in view than because he recognised any claim

that Miss Mildred’s maid might have upon him, he marched up to Culme

House the same evening and briefly informed Judith that he had taken the

King’s shilling.

‘Aw, ma dear soul!’ cried the girl, throwing up her hands in dismay,

‘what iver did ’ee du that vur?’

It was a thing, Jan answered, that had to be done—a thing that every

young man in England would be doing before long, by what he had heard

tell. He further attempted to explain why for him in particular it was

essential to break fresh ground; but, not making much of a success of

this and noticing, moreover, that Judith was not listening, he desisted.

Judith was crying softly, and that gave him a pain at his heart. His

mother also, instead of scolding him, as he had expected her to do, had

wept, throwing her apron over her head and rocking herself to and fro,

while his father, after one short, angry outburst, had abruptly fallen

silent and had walked out of the house with bowed shoulders. It is cruel

to have to hurt people like that; but—what can one do? He did his best

to comfort poor little Judy, who was afraid ‘they pesky Germans’ would

kill him—which indeed did not seem unlikely—but who tried to recover a

cheerful countenance and assured him that she understood everything. He

could not, of course, believe that she did, and would have been quite

sorry if she had; still he was grateful to her for being so brave about

it and for readily promising to deliver a message to Miss Mildred.

He had thought—perhaps half hoped—that Miss Mildred would reproach him

a little for having so suddenly taken a step from which he had been

dissuaded by her; but when she met him on the morrow she did nothing of

the kind. Circumstances alter cases; the country now needed all who were

fit to serve; she assumed that Jan had been actuated by patriotic motives

and had only praise and congratulations for him.

‘How proud we shall all be of you if you come back with a V.C. or an

officer’s commission!’ she exclaimed. ‘Nothing is impossible in war time,

you know.’

Jan smiled and shook his head, but, he often thought of her words

afterwards and made them the nucleus of innumerable day-dreams. What

he longed for at the time was some hint of regret on her part, some

intimation that she would miss him a little. However, she did not seem

to think that there was anything to regret, and it was absurd to suppose

that his departure could make any difference to her. Why should it? One

thing, at any rate, she said which was as delightful as it was unforeseen.

‘You must let me hear from you, John. Write often and at great length,

please, and tell me exactly how everything strikes you. Answer? Oh, of

course I will, and I’ll send you socks and mufflers and things, not to

mention books.’ She added, after a moment, ‘I was thinking of giving you

something now, only I don’t know what you would like to have.’

Jan knew very well what he would like to have: whether he might dare

to ask for it was another question. However, he was going away and it

was probable enough that he would see her no more; so he screwed up

courage to confess that the most welcome gift she could bestow upon him

would be something that had belonged to herself—maybe the little silver

pencil-case which he had so often seen her use.

She presented it to him with a bright smile and with no appearance of

thinking him presumptuous. Then she frankly shook him by the hand, wished

him the best of luck and left him beside the gate leading up to Bratton

Farm, where their colloquy had been held. At the bend of the road she

turned to wave him a last farewell and so disappeared into the misty

twilight.

Jan raised the precious pencil-case to his lips, pushed it into his

waistcoat pocket and was happy. He even told himself in so many words

that he was happy; which is an experience of such rarity that those to

whom it has once come never quite forget it. Jan thought that if he were

to be shot the next week, he would still have had as good a moment as

three score years and ten of life could bring him.

But of course there was no question of his being shot the next week or

for a great many weeks to come. The training process through which he and

other recruits had to go might have been tedious if he had not accepted

it as an indispensable means towards an end, and if he had not, rather

unexpectedly, found a certain pleasure in it. The monotony of drill was

at least a novel species of monotony; his comrades were for the most

part cheery, companionable fellows, many of whom differed sufficiently

from the types hitherto known to him to stimulate his ever alert

curiosity; the sergeant who instructed them in the use of the bayonet had

semi-jocular anecdotes of his own experiences to relate which exhibited

the grim visage of war as wreathed in smiles. Even the very real

hardships and discomforts of camp life under persistent, pitiless rain

were made light of by Jan, who felt himself developing into an efficient

soldier day by day and who indeed was often singled out for commendation.

He wrote regularly, if briefly, to the old people at the farm,

regretting that there was so little to say; yet he found plenty to say to

Miss Mildred. Had she not bidden him to write ‘at great length’? Those

carefully composed epistles of his, which were couched in a queer mixture

of dialect and high-flown language and in which words (culled from the

works of some more competent manipulator of them) were occasionally used

in a sense unrecognised by the dictionary, were not without pathos, as

showing forth a poor mortal brimming over with ideas and impressions and

struggling hard to be articulate. Let us hope that their recipient so

interpreted them. Her replies, at any rate, laconic though they were,

gave the utmost satisfaction to a worshipper who was duly sensible of her

graciousness in deigning to reply at all.

What was not very satisfactory to Jan was that there was no talk of the

battalion to which he belonged proceeding to the front. Some of the men

professed to doubt whether they would ever leave the country; others

had heard that they were to get marching orders in the coming summer;

all were agreed that they would have to make the best of their sodden

camp for several months yet. But no such trial of patience awaited Jan,

who was despatched to France with a draft at very short notice early

in February and who was not long left in his first halting-place some

distance behind the fighting line. His impressions of life in the flooded

trenches and of what it felt like to be under fire were given with great

simplicity, though not without here and there a graphic touch, in the

letters which he afterwards found time to write to Mildred. This war, he

said, was not like any other war that he had ever heard or read of. It

had had its glories, but it did not seem as if it was going to have any

more. Your enemies were close at hand, but you couldn’t get at them, nor

yet they couldn’t get at you. So, taken as a whole, it was not exciting.

The worst part of it was the awful noise of the guns and the bursting

shells, which he found more trying than the wet and cold and the ugly

sights about which he was sure that his correspondent would not wish him

to say much. The desolation of the ravaged country, the wrecked villages

and farmhouses, the homeless peasants, the poor wandering dogs and

cats—he dwelt on these and said that he seemed to be witnessing all the

horrors and miseries of war without any of its grand spectacular effects.

(‘Where in the world did he get “spectacular effects” from?’ Mildred

smilingly wondered when she read this sentence.)

‘And yet,’ he went on, ‘it’s a singular thing that I never felt at peace

like I do now. I don’t know as I can make you understand, Miss—I’m so bad

at setting my meaning down—but it keeps coming over me that all’s as it

should be. Particular at nights, when the clouds blow away and I can look

up at the stars. This planet we live on isn’t but a very small speck, and

we, scrambling about in our trenches, as it might be so many emmets, what

matter how soon we’re gone and forgotten? Years and centuries pass and

everything is forgotten. So why worry? And then the chaps alongside of

me. We don’t talk except about common things, only I know they’re feeling

the same as I do, which draws us together like. Maybe it’s because of

death being always round the corner. Do you mind that poem of Kipling’s,

called _The Return_, in one of the books you lent me? It’s wonderful true

what he says⸺

“So much more near than I ’ad known,

So much more great than I ’ad guessed—

And me, like all the rest, alone—

But reachin’ out to all the rest!”

That’s just the way it strikes me, and somehow it seems to make for

peace, though I couldn’t say why.’

If Jan had probed and analysed the serenity of spirit which he strove to

define, he might have discovered that it arose simply from a sense that

he was doing his duty; but he never quite arrived at that conclusion.

What he did conclude—and found humorously puzzling—was that the place

into which he had dropped was the right place for him, that he must

always have been meant to be a soldier, not a poet nor an imaginative

writer nor any of the fine things that he would have liked to be, but

just a private in an infantry regiment. Well, even so, ambition need not

be banished, and his chance of earning what Miss Mildred had said would

make her proud might come any day.

He did, as the weeks slipped on, obtain sundry occasions of proving

himself a capable fighter; but the affairs in which he was concerned were

not important enough for public record. Save for these sporadic attacks

upon the enemy, which for the most part resulted only in the loss of a

considerable number of lives, there was no break in the regular routine

of so many days in the trenches, followed by a period of rest in billets,

whence he despatched his letters, writing them invariably with the pencil

which was his most treasured possession.

It was on a cold, frosty night in spring that two staff officers,

passing along his trench, halted beside him, and one of them called out:

‘Hullo!—hanged if it isn’t John Issel! Well, Jan, ’tis a wisht poor job

sodgerin’, sure enough. Bain’t it now?’

Jan, standing at the salute, had a broad smile for the handsome young

fellow who accosted him in the dialect of which he had lately been

endeavouring to rid himself. He did not know much of Captain Haseldine,

but he was proud and pleased to be recognised, and he made reply that he

had nothing to complain about. Campaigning, he added, was teaching him a

lot of new things.

‘Oh, it’s doing that for most of us,’ Frank Haseldine observed, laughing.

‘Even for some of our Generals.’

He went on talking for a few minutes about home affairs, remarking in an

explanatory parenthesis to his companion, ‘Issel comes from our parish.’

Then he said to Jan ‘You’ll see Captain Bernard again one of these days,

I hope, if we all pull through. Captain Bernard is engaged to be married

to my sister Mildred.’

It was a little like being hit by a bullet—a sudden thump which made

your heart stand still, yet left you erect and with an instant feeling

that your first duty was to show no sign of distress. Jan showed none,

and presently the two officers moved on, leaving him free to think what

he would beneath his friends the blinking stars. These gave him such

comfort as they had it in their power to bestow. They said it did not

matter, because nothing really matters, and to that view in the abstract

he could assent. But to affirm that so long as his little life might

last it would not matter that somebody—he had scarcely looked at the

man—was going to marry his goddess was quite vain. If the stars had asked

whether he had ever imagined that he himself could marry Miss Mildred, he

would naturally have answered ‘Of course not’; yet, however ridiculous

and insane it might be, the truth was that he could not bear the idea

of her belonging to anybody else. So what it came to, and what it had

doubtless been bound to come to from the outset, was that he could not

bear conditions which were altogether right, reasonable and inevitable.

Jan Issel was not the first to find himself in that forlorn plight. In

extreme cases it has been known to lead to suicide; in the vast majority

it entails submission, more or less facile, to the decrees of destiny;

for Jan it translated itself into a very fervent and genuine hope that

the Germans might wipe him out. He saw now—it may have been illogical,

but that made no difference to the fact—that his visions had been utterly

childish, that he, an uneducated yokel, had no future and could have

none, that it would be far better for him to end out there in Flanders

than to be confronted some day with the dire prospect of a return to

tilling the Devon fields and herding the Devon cattle.

This mood, it is true, did not endure; for he became hazily conscious

that there was something contemptible in it and that a young, strong man

has no business to wish himself extinguished. Nevertheless, he had more

difficulty than usual in composing his next letter to Mildred, in which

he made no allusion to her engagement, thinking that it would be bad

manners to do so, since she had not mentioned it to him. At the end he

remarked:

‘We lose men most days, and maybe my turn will come. It is good to be

alive, because the world is beautiful and wonderful and because of some

of the people in it; but I don’t think there can be many so happy that

they should mind dying, for I can’t believe but what death means rest.’

With such persuasions he was well prepared to face what was in store for

him when at length his battalion was told off to join in an engagement

on a large scale. They knew very little about it beyond the fact that

the British forces, after a rather prolonged spell of inaction, were

about to resume the offensive and that their own special job would be to

take a position facing them which was said to have been mined. That it

had been mined with success was evidenced towards evening by a series

of terrific explosions which seemed simply to annihilate the enemy’s

defensive works; but the infantry were held back until a deluge of shell

had been poured into the ruins. Then Jan and his comrades got the order

to go, and away they went through the twilight smoke and dust, meeting

with no opposition from the apparently broken foe. The distance that

separated them from the first line of hostile trenches was traversed

in no time, and that first line, or what remained of it, was occupied

with ease; but in the communication trenches the Germans made a stand

which resulted in hand-to-hand fighting of a really desperate nature. Of

what was taking place amidst that tumult and welter and in the falling

dusk Jan had only a confused notion; he supposed he must be performing

his share of the task all right, because somebody sang out, ‘Well done,

Issel!’ He was aware of being wounded, for the warm blood was trickling

down his leg and soaking through his putties; but he felt neither pain

nor weakness. Finally there came an abrupt lull. The bearded, grey-coated

Germans had vanished, and he realised that the next line of trenches had

been carried. He realised also, for the second time in his life, that he

was quite happy. When he fell in, forming up with the remnants of his

shattered battalion, he heard himself laughing aloud in sheer glee—he was

as happy as that!

Was it a victory? It seemed so; yet a sudden and violent fusillade,

opening upon them from their left, caused him to glance interrogatively

at his neighbour. The man answered his unspoken query with a muttered

‘Enfiladed, by God!’ and immediately afterwards fell forward, groaning

and swearing. But no groan came from Jan Issel, whom a bullet struck

full in the heart; so that he dropped and never stirred again—only one

amongst thousands who were delivered that night from the complications

and bewilderments of a sick world.

To fall fighting for England in the full tide of life, to fall, shot

through the heart, without a pang and in a moment of supreme exaltation

is to finish gloriously, enviably. We all know this and we all say it,

though some of us perhaps may feel that our own hearts are none the

less broken for that. However, it was not to be expected that Mildred

Haseldine should be broken-hearted when the news came to Culme House. She

was much distressed; still she could not but recognise that there were

compensating circumstances, and she went over at once to Bratton Farm to

impart some of these to the poor lad’s parents. If her condolences were

not received in quite as grateful a spirit as they might have been, she

could and did make allowances for the grief-stricken farmer and his wife.

Old Issel scarcely listened to what she was saying, and cut her short by

calling out in a loud, harsh voice:

‘What did ’a want to go and get hisself killed vur? Darn they foul

Germans! Yes, Miss, I don’t doubt but you’m sorry, but it bain’t your

sorrow as’ll bring my boy back.’

With that he stumped out of the kitchen, leaving Mildred to do what she

could with Mrs. Issel, which was an even more difficult matter. For Mrs.

Issel, dry-eyed and despairing, had some rather unkind and irrational

things to say. When, for instance, she was gently told that her visitor

had strong personal reasons for sympathising with all to whom the war

was bringing anxiety or loss, it was not very generous to rejoin that

the young lady need not fret. ‘They staff officers don’t niver take no

hurt, so I’ve heerd tell.’ But what was really too unjust to be endured

without protest was the assertion that it was Miss Mildred more than

anybody who had driven Jan away to distant battlefields by ‘putting a

passel of foolish notions into his head.’ In self-defence, Mildred had to

remind the old woman that, so far from having encouraged Jan to enlist,

she had tried, by providing him with other interests, to deter him from

so doing. As for his actual enlistment, she had only heard of it after it

had become an accomplished fact. This being undeniably true, Mrs. Issel

made no reply and remained silent while it was represented to her that

we can never be sure whether an early death is a misfortune or not. No

living being can hope to escape sorrow and suffering, and Mildred, for

her part, did not think that poor Jan’s temperament was of the kind that

tends towards happiness.

Probably that also was true. It would hardly have made Jan happy

to discover—as he might have done—that he had mistaken an entirely

commonplace young woman for a divinity nor to realise—as he must have

done—that he was too heavily weighted in life’s handicap to emerge from

the ruck where he was so ill at ease. Judith Combe, while brushing her

mistress’s hair that evening, said of him with unexpected sagacity that

maybe Providence had ‘served him kind’ by taking him out of this world,

seeing that he would always have been set upon what was beyond his reach.

Judith herself was so set upon obtaining something for which she was more

than a little afraid to ask that she decided to take the risk of making

her desire known. Could Miss Mildred spare one of Jan’s letters? He had

not written to her at all, and she would like very much, if she might,

to have a page or two from his own hand. ‘Because we was in a manner

friends, you see, Miss.’

Mildred looked inquiringly at her sedate handmaid and smiled. ‘I am

not sure that it would be quite fair to the poor boy,’ she answered.

‘He says some things which many people would think rather comic, and

perhaps I oughtn’t.... However, you wouldn’t understand. Oh, well, yes,

Judith—take them all, if you care to have them. I think I can find the

whole collection.’

So the whole collection became the property of Judith, who spent many

an hour over it and stained some of its leaves with her tears. It is by

no means certain that she did not understand Jan’s flights of fancy and

diction. It may even have constituted one of the unnumbered ironies of

human experience that Jan himself should have been more nearly understood

by the illiterate Judith than by Mildred Haseldine or by anybody else.

W. E. NORRIS.

_THE NEW ‘UBIQUE’: A BATTLE._

BY JEFFERY E. JEFFERY.

By the ears and the eyes and the brain,

By the limbs and the hands and the wings,

We are slaves to our masters the guns,

But their slaves are the masters of kings!

GILBERT FRANKAU.

Somewhere about the middle of June, we knew definitely that we were ‘for

it,’ as the soldier says; we knew that our division was one of those

chosen for the great concentration which was to culminate in the ‘great

push’—and we were proud of the distinction. A three days’ march brought

us to a certain training area, where we camped for a week and worked some

seventeen hours a day—counting, that is, from réveillé at 4 A.M. until

the last bit of harness was hung up clean and ready for the morrow at 9

P.M.

During this period two incidents of note occurred. One was that the

Child suddenly developed pleurisy, and was removed to hospital—a serious

loss at any time, but especially so at this particular moment. The other

was that a squadron of hostile aircraft flew over our manœuvre ground

and actually dropped a bomb within 150 yards of the tail of our column.

Which, seeing that we were some twenty miles from the nearest part of the

line and at the moment only playing at soldiers, was most disconcerting.

From the time when we left this training area until, about three weeks

later, we were withdrawn to rest in a quiet part of the line, I kept a

rough diary of our particular share in the greatest battle ever fought

by the British Army. The following are some extracts from it, in no way

embellished, but only enlarged so as to make them intelligible.

_June 27._—Nine-hour night march southwards, arriving in

comfortable billets at 3.30 A.M. Aeroplanes (or at any rate,

hostile ones) are the curse of this war: if it was not for

fear of them we could move by daylight in a reasonable manner.

The old saddler, dozing on a wagon, fell off and was run over:

nothing broken, but he will be lost to us. A great pity, as

he’s a charming character and a first-class workman.

_June 28 and 29._—Rested, the continuation of the march having

been postponed.

_June 30._—Orders to move on to-night. Was sent off with a

small party on a road and river reconnaissance: this presumably

with a view to going forward ‘when the advance begins.’ By the

time we got back to where the brigade was to billet, had ridden

about forty miles. Job only half finished. Battery marched in

at midnight.

_July 1._—Started at 5.30 A.M. with same party to finish

reconnaissance. Reached a point about four miles behind the

line, at 7.15 A.M.: a tremendous bombardment in progress. Left

our horses, and walked on two miles to a river. Here learnt

that the attack had been launched at 7.30 and was going well.

Walked north up the river-bank, keeping well under the shelter

of the steep ridge on the east side, and only emerging to

examine each bridge as we came to it. Thousands upon thousands

of shells of every size, from ‘Grannies’ to 18-prs., passing

over our heads unceasingly: expected the enemy to retaliate.

But not a round came: probably the Boche was too busily engaged

elsewhere. Met streams of wounded coming down; some with

captured helmets, nearly all with grins.

Finished the river reconnaissance about 10.30 and walked back

by a roundabout (but less unpleasant!) way, and reached our

horses about midday. Rode back to the battery and spent the

afternoon writing out full report. Orders to move at 11.30 P.M.

Long night march to new billets, arriving 4.15 A.M.

_July 2._—Rested. In the course of the day the Child returned,

having in some amazing way persuaded the hospital authorities

that pleurisy and a temperature of 104° are the best possible

things to have on the eve of a great offensive. Swears he’s all

right now, and objects to being ordered to take it easy—while

he can. Heavy bombardment all day, but we are eight miles back

here. Official communiqués record further successes.

_July 3._—Moved at 9.30 P.M., and arrived (5.30 A.M.) soaking

wet at the worst bivouac it has ever been our unhappy lot to

occupy.

_July 4._—Saw about 150 German prisoners being brought back.

In the afternoon, after a violent thunderstorm, went to look

at the position which we are to take over. Found that it was

immensely strong. Originally it was only 1200 yards from the

enemy front line, but now, since the advance, is about 3000.

Steady rain all the time. Got back to find the camp converted

into a veritable bog, and men of all the batteries making

shelters for themselves by cutting down trees and looting

straw. There will be a row over this, but—well, it is too much

to expect men to submit to such _unnecessary_ discomfort.

_July 5._—Took the Child and two telephonists and went up to

new position. Bombardment proceeding incessantly. Was amazed

at the amount of material already brought up, at the gangs

already working on the shell-wrecked roads, and at the crowd of

spectators who lined a convenient ridge to ‘watch the show.’

Went with the Child and the battery commander from whom we

were taking over to get a look at the country and visit the

O.P. Passed through Fricourt—not long captured. Never could a

bombardment have done its work of destruction more thoroughly

than here. Not figuratively, but literally; no one brick stood

upon another, scarcely one brick was whole. Walked on up the

sunken road that leads north from Fricourt past the Dingle and

Shelter Wood. For days this road had been a death-trap. It

was strewn with corpses, with stretchers on which lay wounded

men awaiting removal, with broken bits of equipment, English

and German—and it stank. We arrived at the headquarters of a

battalion and asked if we could see the colonel.

‘No,’ they told us, ‘you can’t at present. He’s just been

buried in his dug-out by a shell, and it will be some time

before we get him clear; he’s all right, but a bit shaken.’

So we went on up a battered trench to the O.P. In it a

subaltern and two signallers, all three caked in mud. At the

moment the wire to the battery was intact. Two men had been

killed and one wounded whilst mending it. From here we could

see the famous Quadrangle Trench, which at that time was

holding up the advance. Many batteries were shooting at it.

Having got our bearings, so to speak, we did not linger in this

most unhealthy spot, but returned to the battery position.

On the way home met our own colonel bearing the news that the

brigade would probably go into action in quite a different

area. This news confirmed at H.Q. at 5 P.M. Turned back and

reconnoitred the new position, which was farther south, nearer

Fricourt; rather cramped and quite unprepared for occupation.

Cadged dinner from an old friend whom we met at D.H.Q. Met the

battery on the road about 10 P.M. and led it to new position.

Work of getting guns in, ammunition and stores dumped, and

teams away completed by 3 A.M. Awaited dawn.

_July 6._—As soon as it was light went up the hill on the right

front of the battery to meet the colonel, choose an O.P. and

‘learn’ the country. The scene of wreckage upon this hill now

is past all belief, and is, I should imagine, a perfect example

of the havoc wrought by a modern ‘intense’ bombardment. The

whole face of the earth is completely altered. On the German

side of No Man’s Land, not one square yard of the original

surface of the ground remains unbroken. Line upon line of

trenches and tunnels and saps have been so smashed that they

are barely recognisable as such: there are mine craters seventy

to a hundred yards across, and there are dug-outs (some of

these still intact) which go down fifty feet and more into the

chalk. On every side is débris—rails, timber, kit, blankets,

broken rifles, bread, steel helmets, pumps, respirators,

corpses. And nowhere can one get away from the sickening

smell—the smell of putrescent human flesh....

The morning mist cleared at last and we were able to see the

landscape. From the O.P. we chose, the view, for our purposes,

was ideal. Below us lay the ruins that once were Fricourt, to

the right Fricourt Wood, farther off Mametz Wood and village,

and on the skyline Contalmaison. Returned, very dishevelled,

to breakfast at 8 A.M. During the morning ran out a wire,

got ‘through’ to the battery, but did not dare to start

shooting until further information as to the situation of the

infantry was available. Eventually gathered that we only hold

the southern edge of Mametz Wood, and that the Quadrangle

Trench which lies to the left (west) of it is not yet in our

possession. Spent the afternoon registering the guns, and

then began shelling Mametz Wood. Was relieved by the Child at

tea-time. Came down to the battery and washed. Looked forward

to decent night’s rest but was disappointed, viz.:

_July 7._—Woken by Angelo at 1 A.M., who brought orders for a

‘strafe,’ which was to start at 2. Battery fired at a rapid

rate from that hour till 2.30. Went back to bed. Woken by the

Infant, who had relieved Angelo, at 6. Big bombardment to

start at 7.20. Went to telephone dug-out at 7.15, unwashed and

half-dressed, and remained there all day; meals brought in to

me. The battery fired practically continuously for fourteen

hours at rates varying from one to twenty-four rounds a minute.

Targets various—mostly ‘barraging’ Mametz Wood and ground

immediately to the west of it. Worked the detachments as far as

possible in reliefs, turning on spare signallers, cooks, and

servants to carry ammunition as it arrived.

The Child, who was at the O.P., sent down what information

he could, but reported that it was hardly possible to see

anything owing to the smoke. Passed on everything to Brigade

H.Q. (communications working well), and received their

instructions as to changes of target, rate of fire, etc. By

dusk we were all very tired, and several of the men stone deaf.

There were several heavy showers during the day, so that the

position became a quagmire into which the guns sank almost to

their axles and became increasingly difficult to serve. Empty

cartridge cases piled several feet high round each platform:

mud awful. No official communiqué as to result of the day’s

operation. Got eight hours’ sleep.

_July 8._—Shooting, off and on, all day—mostly registration of

new points. In the intervals when not firing the detachments

kept hard at work improving and strengthening the position.

Hostile artillery much more active, but nothing really close

to us. Fired 150 rounds during the night into Mametz Wood:

northern portion not yet in our hands.

_July 9._—A good deal of barrage work all day, but as it was

mostly at a slow rate the men managed to get some rest—goodness

knows, they both need and deserve it.

_July 10._—Went out with the colonel to reconnoitre an advanced

position. Got caught in a barrage, and had to crouch in a

(fortunately) deep trench for half an hour. Sitting there began

to wonder if this was the prelude to a counter-attack; just

then, looking out to the left, that is towards the south-west

corner of Mametz Wood, saw a lot of men running hard. Suddenly

spotted the familiar grey uniform and spiked helmets of the

enemy.

‘God!’ I cried, ‘it _is_ a counter-attack. Those are _Huns_!’

Expected every moment to have one peering in over the top of

the trench: did not dare to run for it, owing to the barrage,

which was still heavy. T⸺, who was with me, remained calm and

put up his glasses.

‘All right,’ he said; ‘they’re prisoners. Look at the escort.’

And so they were, running for their lives through their own

shrapnel—and the escort keeping well up with them!

The storm being over (no ‘hate’ lasts for ever), returned

as quickly as we could, and reported that the position was

possible but by no means tempting! A lot of night firing.