Another incident that occurred to us will show the unvarying promptitude and courtesy with which the French treated us. It happened that close to the battery and in the middle of the French infantry billets was a ruined church tower, of which a certain portion still stood, enough, we discovered, to make it worth our while to build a series of ladders within it, and to use the bell-beam as an emergency observation post. But Monsieur le Poilu thought that this was a capital spot into which to climb, and from thence to wave his képi to his friends and generally to behave in such a manner as to attract the attention of hostile observers, with the not unnatural result that one fine evening the enemy fired a few rounds at it, narrowly missing our senior subaltern, and, which was a matter for far deeper concern, the ration lorry. Complaint being made to the colonel, he, after several complimentary remarks as to our skill in using so unfavourable a place, promised that there should be no repetition of the offence. Ever afterwards an armed guard was posted at the base of the tower, with orders to admit no one but ourselves. Those French soldiers, what children they were, as their behaviour in the tower showed! Whenever we were in action, a crowd of them would gather behind the guns to watch the shell in its flight, as is perfectly easy with any low-velocity howitzer. "Venez voir l'obus!" they would cry, and, as the gun fired, "Le voila, voyez, voyez! ah, il tombe----" and a shriek of delight would almost drown one's subsequent orders. What children and what men! Perfect fighters, eager to rush to the attack, yet patient under the iron discipline of the trenches, easily moved to a wild display of nervous energy, possessing creative imagination, yet stoical under agony to a surpassing degree. And not the men only, but every class--peasants, doctors, priests, each in his own sphere, are imbued with the highest spirit of which man can boast, the spirit of self-sacrifice. I hold no brief for any form of doctrine, being one of those who hold that all religions are nothing but quibbles round a central truth that no sane man denies, but the devotion of the French priest strikes me with the deepest admiration. I have seen a battery heavily shelled and suffer many casualties, so that the detachments were forced to take to their dug-outs. The doctor galloped up on horseback, but the priest on foot, running with his soutane tucked up round his waist, was there first, out in the open administering extreme unction to the mortally wounded, helping others to a place of safety. "Greater love hath no man than this----" IX CHANGING POSITION