"You see that clump of trees," said the young officer, "one of their batteries is just behind there. Those aren't real trees, they were put there by the Russians." I swung the glass to the left, picked up a company of men marching. "Hello, hello," he whispered, then after a moment's scrutiny: "No--they're our men." After all, war isn't always so different from the old days, when men had a time for fighting and a time for going in to powder their wigs! The division commander, standing a little behind us, remarked: "We shall fire from the right-hand battery over behind the hill and then from the left--the one you passed near the road." Then turning to an officer at the field telephone he said; "You may fire now." There was a moment's pause, from over the woods behind us came a "Whr-r-rong !" and out over the sunny fields a shell went milling away to send back a faint report and show a puff of cotton above the trenches to the right. It was a bit short--the next fell better. Another nod, another "Whr-r-row?/" from somewhere behind us, and this time the cottony puff was just short of the clump of trees where the Russians had concealed their battery. I picked up the spot through the glass and-- one might have known !--there was One of those eternal peasants calmly swinging his scythe about fifty yards short of the spot where the shrapnel had exploded. I could see him straighten up, glance at it, then go on with his mowing again. There was a certain elegance, a fine spaciousness about these artillery-men and their work which made one more content with war again. No huddling in muddy trenches here, waiting to be smashed by jagged chunks of iron--everything clean, aloof, scientific, exact, a matter of fine wires crossing on a periscope lens, of elevation, wind pressure, and so on, and everything in the wide outdoors, and done, so to say, with a magnificent gesture. People drive high-power motor-cars and ride strong horses because of the sense of power it gives them--how about standing on a hill, looking over miles of splendid country to where a huddle of ants and hobby-horse specks--say a battalion or two--are just crawling around a hill or jammed on a narrow bridge, and then to scatter them, herd them, chase them from one horizon to another with a mere, "Mr. Jones, you may fire now," and a wave of the hand! The division commander took us back a mile or so to his headquarters for lunch, the Russians slowly waking up and sending a few perfunctory shells after us as we went over the hill, and here was another genial party, with three "Hochs" for the guests at the end. Even out here in empty Galicia the soldiers got their beer. "We're not quite so temperate as the Russians," the general smiled. "A little alcohol--not too much--does 'em good."