Now indeed we were "in the battle"! Our own guns were thundering away behind us, and the road was more and more broken up by shell holes. "Look at that group of trees to your left--beyond it is Neuve Chapelle," said our guide. "And you see those ruined cottages, straight ahead, and the wood behind." He named a wood thrice famous in the history of the war. "Our lines are just beyond the cottages, and the German lines just in front of the wood. How far are we from them? Three-quarters of a mile." It was discussed whether we should be taken zigzag through the fields to the entrance of the communication-trench. But the firing was getting hotter, and Captain ---- was evidently relieved when we elected to turn back. Shall I always regret that lost opportunity? You did ask me to write something about "the life of the soldiers in the trenches"--and that was the nearest that any woman could personally have come to it! But I doubt whether anything more--anything, at least, that was possible--could have deepened the whole effect. We had been already nearer than any woman--even a nurse--has been, in this war, to the actual fighting on the English line, and the cup of impressions was full. As we turned back, I noticed a little ruined cottage, with a Red Cross flag floating. Our guide explained that it was a field dressing-station. It was not for us--who could not help--to ask to go in. But the thought of it--there were some badly wounded in it--pursued me as we walked on through the beautiful evening. A little farther we came across what I think moved me more than anything else in that crowded hour--those same companies of men we had seen sitting waiting in the fields, now marching quietly, spaced one behind the other, up to the trenches, to take their turn there. Every day I am accustomed to see bodies, small and large, of khaki-clad men, marching through these Hertfordshire lanes. But this was different. The bearing was erect and manly, the faces perfectly cheerful; but there was the seriousness in them of men who knew well the work to which they were going. I caught a little quiet whistling, sometimes, but no singing. We greeted them as they passed, with a shy "Good luck!" and they smiled shyly back, surprised, of course, to see a couple of women on that road. But there was no shyness towards the General. It was very evident that the relations between him and them were as good as affection and confidence on both sides could make them.