"The Old Peacemaker" didn't tell me, but I know now that nearly half "A" Company are casualties; and there's a good many "gone West." Poor Taffy's gone. Such a clever lad, Taffy. My Platoon won't be quite the same again, will it? Platoon Sergeant, one other Sergeant, two Corporals, and a lot of men gone. We were in front, you see. Oh! I know there's nothing to grieve about, really. Petticoat Lane's behind our front now, thank goodness. That'll save many a good man from "going West" between now and the end of the war. I'm not grieving, but it makes a difference, just as England is different. Everything must be different now. It can't be the same again, ever, after one's been in the trenches. If Germany wants to boast, she can boast that she's altered the world for us. She certainly has. It can never be the same again. But I think it will be found, by and by, she has altered it in a way she never meant. Of course, I don't know anything much about it; just the little bit in one's own Brigade, you know. But it does seem to me, from the little I've seen, that where Germany meant to break us, she has made us infinitely stronger than we were before. Look at our fellows! Each one is three times the man he was before the war. The words "fighting for England" had next to no meaning for me before August, 1914. But now! that's why these fields look different, why England can never again look the same to me as it did before. I know now that this England is part of me, or I'm part of it. I know the meaning of England, and I swear I never did before. Why, you know, the very earth of it--well, when I think how the Boche has torn and ravaged all before him over there, and then think of our England, of what the Hun would do here, if he got half a chance.... It's as though England were one's mother, and some swine were to---- But it's no good. I can't write about it. I'll try to tell you. But, do you know, it wasn't till I saw these fields that the notion came over me that I'm sort of proud and glad to have these blessed wounds; glad to have been knocked about a bit. I wonder whether you and Mother will be glad, too; I somehow think you will--for your "_Temporary Gentleman_." THE END _A Selection from the_ _Catalogue of_ G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS Complete Catalogues sent on application FIRST CALL GUIDE POSTS TO BERLIN BY ARTHUR GUY EMPEY _Author of "OVER THE TOP"_ _12°. Illustrated. $1.50 (By mail, $1.65)_ In the amazingly vivid and simple way that has made =Over the Top= the most widely read and talked of book in America, and the most successful war book in all history, Empey tells the new soldiers