their coughing if there happened to be a cessation of artillery and machine-gun fire—but not see them. In the two hours following dawn in “quiet” sectors there was sometimes a kind of truce after the feverish work and perpetual firing during the night. After morning Stand-down the front-line troops snatched a little sleep. At such a time the silence was eerie. Twenty thousand men within a mile, and not a sound. Or so it seemed. But that was by contrast. In fact, there was always some shelling going on—heavies firing on back areas—and generally in the distance the long rumble which meant a general engagement.... The soldiers, then, were not vindictive. Nor, in general, were they long duped by the war talk. They laughed at the newspapers. Any new-comer who tried to be a bit high-falutin’ was at once snubbed with “Fer Christ’s sake don’t talk patriotic!” They went on with a sort of stubborn despair, why they didn’t quite know. The authorities obviously mistrusted them, and forbade them to read the pacific “Nation” while allowing them to read the infamies of “John Bull.” The mistrust was unnecessary. They went on in their stubborn despair, with their sentimental songs and cynical talk and perpetual grousing; and it’s my belief that if they’d been asked to do so, they’d still be carrying on, now. They weren’t crushed by defeat or elated by victory—their stubborn despair had taken them far beyond that point. They carried on. People sneer at the war slang. I, myself, have heard intellectual “objectors” very witty at the expense of “carry on.” So like carrion, you know. All right, let them sneer. * * * * * The troopships crossing the Channel were escorted by four plunging little black torpedo-boats. Submarines in the Channel. A merchant ship had been sunk that morning. Winterbourne had thought he would be apprehensive—on the contrary, he found that he scarcely thought about it. Nobody bothered about a little risk like that. They made for Boulogne, and the soldiers cheered the torpedo boats as they turned back from the harbour entrance. In his inexperience Winterbourne had assumed that they would at once entrain for the front, and that he would spend that night in the trenches. He had forgotten the element of waiting, the deliberation necessary in moving vast masses of men about, which made the slow ruthless movement of the huge War machine so inexorable. You hung about, but inevitably you moved, your tiny little cog was brought into action. And this, too, was strangely impersonal, confirmed the feeling of fatalism. It seemed insane to think that you had any individual importance.