But what are we going to do for them? The mere noise is enough to break any man's nerves. Every one of those shrieking shells which fell night and day might mean any man's instant death. As he hears each shell coming he knows it. He saw the sights around him--he was buried by earth and dug out by his mates, and he dug them out in turn. What can we do for him? I know only one thing--it is the only alleviation that science knows of. (I am talking now of the most modern and heaviest of battles, and of the thick and centre of it; for no men have ever been through a heavier fight than Pozieres.) We can force some mitigation of all this by one means and one alone--if we can give the Germans worse. The chief anxiety in the mind of the soldier is--have we got the guns and the shells--can we keep ahead of them with guns and our ammunition? That means everything. These men have the nerve to go through these infernos, provided their friends at home do not desert them. If the munition worker could see what I have seen, he would toil as though he were racing against time to save the life of a man. I saw yesterday a letter picked up on the battlefield--it was from an Australian private. "Dear Mother, sisters, brothers and Auntie Lill," it said. "As we are about to go into work that must be done, I want to ask you, if anything should happen to me, not to worry. You must think of all the mothers that have lost ones as dear to them. One thing you can say--that you lost one doing his little bit for a good cause. "I know you shall feel it if anything does happen to me, but I am willing and prepared to give my life for the cause." Such lives hang from hour to hour on the work that is done in the British factories. CHAPTER XX THE NEW FIGHTING _France, August 20th._ It is a month this morning since Australians plunged into the heart of the most modern of battles. They had been in many sorts of battle before; but they had never been in the brunt of the whole war where the science and ingenuity of war had reached for the moment their highest pitch. One month ago they plunged into the very brunt and apex of it. And they are still fighting there.