endless _work_ everywhere, prophesied the great things ahead. Perpetual,
highly organised, scientific drudgery is three parts of war, it seems,
as men now wage it. The Army, as I saw it, was at work--desperately at
work!--but "dreaming on things to come."

One delightful hour of that March day stands out for me in particular.
The strong, attractive presence of an Army Commander, whose name will be
for ever linked with that of the battle of the Vimy ridge, surrounded by
a group of distinguished officers; a long table, and a too brief stay;
conversation that carries for me the thrill of the _actual thing_, close
by, though it may not differ very much from wartalk at home: these are
the chief impressions that remain. The General beside me, with that look
in his kind eyes which seems to tell of nights shortened by hard work,
says a few quietly confident things about the general situation, and
then we discuss a problem which one of the party--not a soldier--starts.

Is it true or untrue that long habituation to the seeing or inflicting
of pain and death, that the mere sights and sounds of the trenches tend
with time to brutalise men, and will make them callous when they return
to civil life? Do men grow hard and violent in this furnace after a
while, and will the national character suffer thereby in the future? The
General denies it strongly. "I see no signs of it. The kindness of the
men to each other, to the wounded, whether British or German, to the
French civilians, especially the women and children, is as marked as it
ever was. It is astonishing the good behaviour of the men in these
French towns; it is the rarest thing in the world to get a complaint."

I ask for some particulars of the way in which the British Army "runs"
the French towns and villages in our zone. How is it done? "It is all
summed up in three words," says an officer present, "M. le Maire!" What