Great Britain at War

or such as have eyes to see) is always a sad

d deserted, thus few were by to heed his stiff-lipped, agonised smile and the passionate clasp of her hands, or to hear her heartbreaking

for all their pitiful quiver; thus I answered my companion somewhat at random and the waiter's proffer of breakfast was an insult. And, as I stared out at misty trees and hedgerow I b

hing over breakfast, and in their merriment I, too, rejoiced. Yet the grim

ea, the gaunt outlines of destroyers that were to convoy us Francewards. Hereupon my companion, K., a hardened traveller, inured to customs, passports and the like noxious things, led me thro

hannel; the white cliffs slowly faded, the wind freshened, and I, observing that ever

, now lost in spray, now showing a glistening height of freeboard, and, as I watched,

aside my clumsy cork jacket and was presently on French soil. And yet, except for a few chattering porters, the air rang with good English voices hailing each other in cheery greetings, and khaki was everywher

, immaculate, and very much master of himself and circumstances it seemed, for, despite crowded customs office, he whisked us t

uiet man, who took us readily under his able guidance. And indeed a huge place was this, a place for me of aw

flanked by long, low buildings that reach away in far perspective, buildings of corrugated iron, of wood and asbe

e of death and wounds, of shell-shock, nerve-wrack and insanity; but he told also of wonderful

oned, "have you don

duties now are chiefly administrative," and h

sters were busied, and smart, soft-treading orderlies came and went. Here in white cots lay many bandaged forms, so

l, remembering the hell whence they had so lately come, I thought I understood. Thus, bethinking me of how these dire hurts had been come by, I

akly and undersized, and among them were many grey heads, a very motley company. These, the Colonel

d bone and brain, of lives snatched from the grip of Death by the marvels of up-to-date surgery, and as I listened to his pleasant voice I sensed much of the grim wonders he left untold. We visited X-ray rooms and operating theatre a

redth time as we stepped out upon a trim

admitted, "a little while ag

lawns?" I

it planted and it has done rather well. Now, what else can I show you? It would take all the afternoon to v

figures they seemed, and yet with an indefinable something in their looks-a vagueness of gaze, a loose-lipped, too-ready smile, a vacancy of expression. Some there were who scowled sullenly

wrong. The man looked up, looked down and mutte

y," she explained, and touched the man's bo

Colonel-Surgeon, "and affects men in many e

e poor fellows will

t," he answered in hi

re, in a single day, six hundred men had been equipped from head to foot; I beheld large

f hurts and suffering more awful than our fighting ancestors ever had to endure. Presently I left this place, but now

ured flesh, and has reddened beneath the heel of Tyranny; this same sun has seen the smoke and ravishment of cities and been darkened by the hateful mists of war-but never such a war as this of cultured barbarity with all its new devi

nt blood, the bitter tears, the agony of soul and heartbreak, I am persuaded that Retribution mus

al justice of man, there is yet the inexorable tribunal of the Hereafter, wh