Neuve Chapelle however was no victory as also it was no defeat. =GOOD NEWS TO-NIGHT= said the placards of the London papers, but what had happened was merely a rehearsal with many accidents. The fighting lasted three days. The enemy gave as much as he took. Men spent the night in trenches waist-deep in water, and were shelled mercilessly. They got up prematurely to attack; to face fires of execution--the serried array of the enemy's machine gunnery. Did not a battalion of Guards lose three officers and a hundred men whilst speeding over a mere hundred and fifty yards? On the other hand certainly German positions were isolated and hundreds of foemen walked demurely into captivity behind the British lines. You will look in vain for the graves of thousands of heroes. The bodies have been taken far away, but Neuve Chapelle has its cemetery of exhumés covered with brown level-raked earth behind a fertile beanfield. Captain Sir Edward Hulse, hero of a night raid at Fromelles, lies buried by the wayside, and he died at Neuve Chapelle. As for German dead, there is a strange absence of graves, but beyond Neuve Chapelle is a field of outrageous thistles and broad-bladed rotting crosses, some down, some standing, all with faded inscriptions, but the thistles are so thick and high one might easily pass by without observing an old graveyard of our dread enemy. It would be interesting to read a German account, oh, not an official one, of this battle of Neuve Chapelle, an account by one of the common soldiers who fraternised with his enemy on Christmas Day and had to kill him ere Easter had arrived. A long black touring-car has drawn up at the side of the road at Neuve Chapelle, and a handsome grey-haired English gentleman looks on the ruins. Says a small boy to him, "Daddy, what did the Germans do here?" "I don't know, my boy," says he. "But there was a great battle here early in the war, and we tried to win it. I don't think anybody won." * * * * * So the Army went back to its football leagues and boxing competitions which afforded a happy subsidiary interest. True, some of the athletes and bright particular sporting stars had fallen, but others constantly arrived from inexhaustible old England. As regards the war a rigorous optimism set in. Complete victory was postponed for two months. There must be more and better rehearsals, that was all. A passion for discipline and the shooting of cowards set in. Poor R---- was shot beside Laventie. Sergeant-majors "came into their own."