So many thoughts and pictures come to me to-night. One is of a ravine I was in a few days ago, all my men mounted and waiting to move forward. Wounded horses of the enemy are limping through the grass. German wagons, caught by our shell-fire, stand silent, the drivers frozen to the seats with a terrifying look of amazement on their faces, their jaws loose and their bodies sagging. Others lie twisted in the grass—some in delirium, some watching. We shall need all our water before the day is over, and have no time to help them. Besides, our own dead are in sight and a cold anger is in our heart. The stretcher-bearers will be along presently—time enough for mercy when the battle is won! We ourselves may be dead before the sun has set. I know the anger of war now, the way I never did in the trenches. You can see your own killing. You can also see the enemy’s work. And yet, through it all down come our wounded, supported by the wounded Huns. “Those chaps are very good to you,” one of our officers said. The Tommy grinned. “They have to be. If they weren’t, I’d let the daylight into them. I’ve a pocketful of bombs, and they know it.” Well, that’s one incentive to friendship, however reluctant. The Huns are brave—I know that now. They endure tests of pluck that are well-nigh incredible. We are not defeating craven curs. I can think of no one braver than the man who stays behind with a machine gun, fighting a rearguard action and covering his comrades’ road to freedom. He knows that he will receive no quarter from our people and will never live to be thanked by his own. His lot is to die alone, hated by the last human being who watches him. They’re brave men; they cease fighting only when they’re dead. What a contrast between love and hatred—dreaming of our mothers to the last and smashing the sons of other mothers. That’s war! LXXIII France August 22, 1918 Here I am lying flat on my tummy in the grass and spying on the enemy 2000 yards away. I shall be here for twenty-four hours. There’s no sort of cover and the sun is scalding. Luckily we’ve found water in a captured village near by and I sent our linesmen to refill our bottles. There’s a lull for the moment and we stretch ourselves out in weary contentment The body is a traitor to the spirit—it can become very tired. I begin to see the end of the war. I can feel it coming as I never did before since I struck France. The unbelievable truth begins to dawn on me that we’ll be coming back to you—that we shall wake up one morning to find that the world has no further use for our bombs and bayonets. Strange! After so much killing, to kill will be again a crime. We shall begin to count our lives in years instead of in days.