And now, after this lapse of time, it still seems incredible. Are they still there? Report has it that the Germans captured this town and held it for a time, only to lose it later. What happened to the little "sick and sorry" house during those fearful days? Did the German officers sit about that pine table and throw a nut to summon an orderly? Did they fill the lamp while it was lighted, and play on the cracked piano, and pick up shrapnel cases as they landed on the doorstep and set them on the mantel? Ten minutes to eleven! The chauffeur came to the door and stuck his head in. "I have found petrol in a can in an empty shed," he explained. "It is now possible to go." We went. We lost no time on the order of our going. The rain was over, but the fog had descended again. We lighted our lamps, and were curtly ordered by a sentry to put them out. In the moment that they remained alight, carefully turned away from the trenches, it was possible to see the hopeless condition of the street. At last we reached a compromise. One lamp we might have, but covered with heavy paper. It was very little. The car bumped ominously, sagged into shell-holes. I turned and looked back at the house. Faint rays of light shone through its boarded windows. A wounded soldier had been brought up the street and stood, leaning heavily on his companion, at the doorstep. The door opened, and he was taken in. Good-bye, little "sick and sorry" house, with your laughter and tears, your friendly hands, your open door! Good-bye! Five minutes later, as we reached the top of the Street, the bombardment began. CHAPTER XXV VOLUNTEERS AND PATRIOTS I hold a strong brief for the English: For the English at home, restrained, earnest, determined and unassuming; for the English in the field, equally all of these things. The British Army has borne attacks at La Bassée and Ypres, positions so strategically difficult to hold that the Germans have concentrated their assaults at these points. It has borne the horrors of the retreat from Mons, when what the Kaiser called "General French's contemptible little army" was forced back by oncoming hosts of many times its number. It has fought, as the English will always fight, with unequalled heroism but without heroics. To-day, after many months of war, the British Army in the field is as smart, in a military sense, as tidy--if it will forgive me the word--as well ordered, as efficiently cared for, as the German Army was in the beginning. Partly this is due to its splendid equipment. Mostly it is due to that fetish of the British soldier wherever he may be--personal neatness.