will bear no grudge. It is simple as that--for them. But to the
onlooker, they are all figures in a great design--woven into the
terrible tapestry of war, and charged with a meaning that we of this
actual generation shall never more than dimly see or understand.

Again we rush along the exposed road and back into the mining region,
taking a westward turn. A stately chateau, and near it a smaller house,
where a General greets us. Lunch is over, for we are late, but it is
hospitably brought back for us, and the General and I plunge into talk
of the retreat, of what it means for the Germans, and what it will mean
for us. After luncheon, we go into the next room to look at the
General's big maps which show clearly how the salients run, the smaller
and the larger, from which the Germans are falling back, followed
closely by the troops of General Gough. News of the condition of the
enemy's abandoned lines is coming in fast. "Let no one make any mistake.
They have gone because they _must_--because of the power of our
artillery, which never stops hammering them, whether on the line or
behind the line, which interferes with all their communications and
supplies, and makes life intolerable. At the same time, the retreat is
being skilfully done, and will of course delay us. That was why they did
it. We shall have to push up roads, railways, supplies; the bringing up
of the heavy guns will take time, but less time than they think! Our men
are in the pink of condition!"

On which again follows very high praise of the quality of the men now
coming out under the Military Service Act. "Yet they are conscripts,"
says one of us, in some surprise, "and the rest were volunteers." "No
doubt. But these are the men--many of them--who had to balance
duties--who had wives and children to leave, and businesses which
depended on them personally. Compulsion has cut the knot and eased their