Better still, our own military organisation still exists. In every part of our country occupied by the British our Army has its representatives, such as workers on the roads, Army Service Corps units, and military police. All this crowd, civilians and soldiers alike, "carry on" without the smallest hitch or quarrel with our British guests. This occupation of our territory, carried out with so much understanding and discipline, could not possibly cause any discontent among our peasants. Over and above the protection of a rich district, the British Army has developed commercially a great number of ports and inland towns, has created industries hitherto unknown, increased the railways, put to the utmost use the resources of the country, and, in fact, has improved local commerce in every respect. Those who listen to the vile insinuations of the Germans and impute to the British the desire of remaining in France after the war, little understand the love of every British citizen for his native soil and his respect for our own independence. In order to divide our two friendly nations the Germans must find another trick. Some money, great sympathy, and, alas! many dead, are all that will be left of our friends in France after the war.[B] [B] From the last despatch of Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig: "I cannot close this Despatch without alluding to the happy relations which continue to exist between the Allied Armies and between our troops and the civil population in France and Belgium. The unfailing co-operation of our Allies, their splendid fighting qualities, and the kindness and goodwill universally displayed towards us have won the gratitude, as well as the respect and admiration, of all ranks of the British Armies." [Illustration: 10. THE PRINCE OF WALES.] PART IV. IMPRESSIONS OF "NO MAN'S LAND." CHAPTER I. AS IN A PICTURE OF EPINAL. Yesterday I met the Prince of Wales in the lines. The Prince of Wales! What does that name not say to a Frenchman! It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. A small, soaking rain was falling over the dismal plateau where once stood so many smiling villages and fair woods, now ruined, whose names, immortalised by British valour, must live forever in history. It was close on nightfall. Through the sticky, heavy mud troops and wagons crawled towards the firing line. The men, with naked chests that defied the bitter cold, sweated furiously under the load of their equipment. Horses with huge, hairy feet, mounted by Australians like so many cowboys, struggled, foaming, to drag the huge lorries through the deep ruts of the roadway. Men from the pioneer battalions, directed by Engineers, worked with pick and shovel to drain away the water, to rebuild the fallen embankments, or to fill up boggy places. So while the guns roared, methodically and in silence the Army prepared the soil for Victory.