There is a little old cemetery by the side of the road a mile or so from Laventie, and there lie prominently side by side two corporals of the Sixth Black Watch (Newell and Willis) and behind their graves is that of a certain Sergeant Oliver who perished on Christmas Day. A tall rose tree with crimson roses blooming even in the autumn is growing from the earth where he lies. Beside him lies one who was both captain and knight, with only a dock rising from his feet. On all graves are weeds except on that of the man who gave his life to shake hands on Christmas Day. * * * * * The winter life of 1915-16 was one of mud and frostbite in the line, and taverns and songs when out. The whole corner of Northern France about Armentières begot a sort of British character. Not that it was like any district at home. Or that the way of life resembled anything anywhere else at any time. Tommy in the _estaminet_, Tommy with his sing-song in billets, Tommy on the march slogging through the mud--began as it were to belong to France and to the war. He ceased to look like an imported article. He was disposed to be at home, and like Mark Tapley, that most characteristic of English types of men, to be happy even under the most melancholy circumstances. The soldier, whatever his inward sorrows, often so deep, so poignant, always kept a cheery face and had a devil-may-care smile for whatever came along. Of course he had his grousing fits. But they passed. He was most himself when singing. To France he sang all the old songs he ever knew and more besides which he invented. How vulgar, in London how banal were the songs--"vulgar songs which make you cough and blow your nose" as Kipling put it, the seemingly maudlin _Hullo my dearie I want you to-night_ sort of song. But in France how real, how passionate! A group of men stand in the partial shelter of a shattered building crooning together whilst it rains, whilst it pours on the mud outside! In England the words which they sing are sentimental drivel, they are the barrel-organ and its handle turning, but in France they are the voice of a suppressed yearning and suffering-- I ... shall meet you ... to-night, dear-- In my beautee ... ful dream ... land. And your eyes will be bright, dear, With ... the love light ... that shines for me. The only place where the soldier could meet her, till there came one of those madly-coveted greedily-snatched moments of leave, when a man dashed, with the mud of the trenches still on him, straight to "Blighty."