height beneath which the death-haunted bridge across the Aisne was visible. When darkness fell I saw the horizon lighted with the quick flashing of the cannonade. Such scenes were afterwards to become commonplace: but their first aspect was thrilling. I dined with the young officers of the Head-quarters Staff and met there, for the last time alas, my brilliant, gallant friend Hugh Dawnay. Early next morning I opened with Sir John French the principal business I had to discuss, namely, the advantages of disengaging the British Army from its position on the Aisne and its transportation to its natural station on the sea flank in contact with the Navy. I found the Field Marshal in the most complete accord, and I undertook to lay his views before Lord Kitchener and the Prime Minister, who I knew would welcome such a development. I started home immediately and reached London the next morning. Contact with the Army was always a great encouragement to every one who visited France. In the field, in spite of the newly-dug graves and hurrying ambulances, there was not the same sense of tragedy as hung around our windows in Whitehall. But I could not share the universal optimism of the Staff. It was firmly believed and loudly declared on every side that if all available reinforcements in officers and men were sent to the Army without delay, the war would be finished by Christmas. Fierce were the reproaches that the War Office were withholding vitally needed officers, instructors and material for the purpose of training vast armies that would never be ready in time. I combated these views to the best of my ability, being fully convinced of Lord Kitchener’s commanding foresight and wisdom in resisting the temptation to meet the famine of the moment by devouring the seed-corn of the future. I repeated the memorable words he had used to the Cabinet that ‘The British Empire must participate in the land war on the greatest scale and that in no other way could victory be won.’ Taking a complete survey, I consider now that this prudent withholding from the Army in the field in the face of every appeal and demand the key-men who alone could make the new armies, was the greatest of the services which Lord Kitchener rendered to the nation at this time, and it was a service which no one of lesser authority than he could have performed. CHAPTER XIII ON THE OCEANS