Having delivered my bombs into eager hands, I reported to the officer who seemed to be in charge, and asked if I could do anything. I must frankly admit that my one hope was that he would not want me to stay. He began to say how that morning he had reached his objective, and how for lack of support on his flank, for lack of bombs, for lack of men, he had been forced back; and how for eight hours he had disputed every inch of ground till now his men could only cling to these mounds with the dumb mechanical tenacity of utter exhaustion. "You might go to H.Q.," he said at last, "and tell them where I am, and that I can't hold on without ammunition and a barrage." I am afraid that I went with joy on that errand. I did not want to stay on those chalk mounds. * * * * * I only saw a very little bit of the battle. Thank God it has gone well elsewhere; but here we are where we started. Day and night we have done nothing but bring in the wounded and the dead. When one sees the dead, their limbs crushed and mangled, their features distorted and blackened, one can only have repulsion for war. It is easy to talk of glory and heroism when one is away from it, when memory has softened the gruesome details. But here, in the presence of the mutilated and tortured dead, one can only feel the horror and wickedness of war. Indeed it is an evil harvest, sown of pride and arrogance and lust of power. Maybe through all this evil and pain we shall be purged of many sins. God grant it! If ever there were martyrs, some of these were martyrs, facing death and torture as ghastly as any that confronted the saints of old, and facing it with but little of that fierce fanatical exaltation of faith that the early Christians had to help them. For these were mostly quiet souls, loving their wives and children and the little comforts of home life most of all, little stirred by great emotions or passions. Yet they had some love for liberty, some faith in God,--not a high and flaming passion, but a quiet insistent conviction. It was enough to send them out to face martyrdom, though their lack of imagination left them mercifully ignorant of the extremity of its terrors. It was enough, when they saw their danger in its true perspective, to keep them steadfast and tenacious. For them "it is finished." _R.I.P._ V ROMANCE I suppose that there are very few officers or men who have been at the front for any length of time who would not be secretly, if not openly, relieved and delighted if they "got a cushy one" and found themselves _en route_ for "Blighty"; yet in many ways soldiering at the front is infinitely preferable to soldiering at home. One of the factors which count most heavily in favour of the front, is the extraordinary affection of officers for their men.