He said he spoke French indifferently and German not at all, which was excellent news. “My principals,” I explained, “are very anxious, of course, to receive news of the war. The London hospitals are filled with wounded, and I have no doubt that you would be able to obtain admission to the wards and collect the personal narratives of the men as they come home.” “I get you, Steve,” he said. “You want stories of heroism in battle?” “Exactly,” I said, “but don’t dwell so much upon the romantical side of the war. Encourage the men to speak not of their own battalions but of the gallant fellows who were fighting on their left and on their right. Find out what other regiments are in their divisions. Learn something about their officers. Who are the most popular and who are the most unpopular. What sort of men are their colonels. We want to see the war at a new angle,” I went on hurriedly, for he looked a little dubious and disappointed, “and we can only do that if we get off the beaten track. When you have written your matter you will hand it to me and I will embody it in my weekly letter to--er--China.” From the very first my scheme was a success. Not a day passed but Mister Haynes brought into me precisely the information which Headquarters required. You must understand that unless you take prisoners it is almost impossible to discover what is your enemy’s order of battle. Once you have discovered where certain divisions fit in and what places particular battalions take, you will no longer be in the dark in any subsequent actions in which those divisions take part. For instance, if the Wessex are on the right of the 99th Division and the Royal Hertfordshires are in the centre, and you know the positions of every other battalion, you have only to pick up one prisoner from one battalion at any point of the line to know exactly the disposition of the others. And here is another matter. A soldier coming back wounded from the front will perhaps tell you that whilst his battalion stood the brunt of an offensive, the battalion on his left did not resist with the same resolution and he will probably give you the reason for this. It may be that the weak battalion has a weak commanding officer, or that the discipline is slack, and once our staff know this they also know where to thrust the arrowhead of subsequent attacks. The information which was given to the Great General Staff by the indiscriminate publication of soldiers’ letters cannot be exaggerated, and I for one deeply regretted the decision of the English War Office to prohibit their publication. Mister Haynes brought information of the first class, but nothing so enthralling as that which he brought one afternoon about three weeks after he had started working. I remember the occasion so well. I can see him almost as tangibly as though he stood before me leaning against the desk, his rusty hat on the back of his head, his hands as usual in his pockets.