Is there no one with the courage to tell them that war is not like this, that there will come a day without music, when there are no bright colours and no admiring eyes, but when “the lice are in their hair and the scabs are on their tongue”? Surely our years of sacrifice were vain if the most highly educated people in Europe remain in ignorance of the real nature of war and are open scoffers at the League of Nations. They believe that England is the biggest brigand in the world, and look upon Germany as the home of all Progress, valiantly defending herself against a league of jealous enemies. To me it is incredible and I remonstrate—they mention Ireland, Egypt, India, and Versailles. Then I realise that the bitterest passages in my diary are only too true—the sway of the old men has returned, the dead are forgotten, and betrayed. Please God that they may never know the futility of their sacrifice. I am weary and tired of life myself; a mere shell of a man, without health or strength, whose vitality was eaten out by the Flanders mud. This ease and luxury is sent to mock me; I fling my cigar overboard with angry contempt. Along the northern sky the summer sunset is mingling with the dawn in a riot of impossible colours. My mind turns back to a day when Gheluvelt lay smoking in the sun, England still slumbered, and the flower of the Prussian Army were pouring in overwhelming numbers along the road to Calais. The 1st Division was fought to a standstill, dying in thousands but yielding not an inch; the 7th was practically annihilated but somehow held their line, counterattacking again and again until the khaki drops were swallowed in the sea of gray; there was an open gap at last. Haig himself rode down the Menin road to call for a last effort from the weary men; a gunner officer, his arm hanging in shreds from the shoulder, took his last gun on to the open road and fired into the gray masses until he died; the Worcesters flung their remnants across the road, and the line was made again. The whitest gentlemen of England died that day, and I would that I had rotted in their company before I saw their sacred trust betrayed. We have dropped their fiery torch and the silken cushions call us. GLASGOW: W. COLLINS SONS AND CO. LTD. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration] =Messrs. COLLINS’ Latest Novels= _Messrs. COLLINS will always be glad to send their book lists regularly to readers who will send name and address._ PIRACY Michael Arlen