In such tales of these men in hospital, and in the letters they have written home, there is a common agreement that the German rifle shooting is beneath contempt--“they shoot from the hip and don’t seem to aim at anything in particular;” but their artillery practice is spoken of with respect and admiration. The German artillery is very good, writes Private Geradine, of the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers, but their aeroplanes help them a lot. It is a pretty sight to see the shells burst in the night, he adds--it’s like Guy Fawkes Day! I like too, such robust cheerfulness and gay good-humour in face of the horrors of death as sounds through the letter of Sapper Bradley: I have never seen our lads so cheery as they are under great trials. You couldn’t help being proud of them if you saw them lying in the trenches cracking jokes or smoking while they take pot shots at the Germans.... We have very little spare time now, but what we have we pass by smoking concerts, sing-songs, and story-telling. Sometimes we have football for a change, with a German helmet for a ball, and to pass the time in the trenches have invented the game of guessing where the next German shell will drop. Sometimes we have bets on it, and the man who guesses correctly the greatest number of times takes the stakes. And surely no less do I like the equally courageous but more sombre outlook of the Scottish Private who complained of the famous retreat from Mons, It was “Retire! retire! retire!” when our chaps were longing to be at them. But they didn’t swear about it, because being out there and seeing what we saw makes you feel religious. I like that wonderful diary kept by a driver of the 4th Ammunition Column, 3rd section, R.F.A. It was sent over from Paris by Mr. Harold Ashton, _The Daily News_ correspondent, and is as naïvely and minutely realistic as if it were a page out of Defoe. The driver’s interests are naturally centred in his horses, they hold the first place in his regard, the excitements of the war coming second. He records how he went from Hendon to Southampton on the 21st August: