them, a deep and abiding sense of their sufferings and dangers, of all
that they are giving to their country. How this comes out again and
again in the innumerable death-stories of British officers--those few
words that commemorate them in the daily newspapers! And how evident is
the profound response of the men to such a temper in their officers!
There is not a day's action in the field--I am but quoting the
eye-witnesses--that does not bring out such facts. Let a senior
officer--an "old and tried soldier"--speak. He is describing a walk over
a battlefield on the Ancre after one of our victories there
last November:

"It is a curious thing to walk over enemy trenches that I have watched
like a tiger for weeks and weeks. But what of the boys who took those
trenches, with their eleven rows of barbed wire in front of them? I
don't think I ever before to-day rated the British soldier at his proper
value. His sufferings in this weather are indescribable. When he is not
in the trenches his discomforts are enough to kill any ordinary mortal.
When he is in the trenches it is a mixture between the North Pole and
Hell. And yet when the moment comes he jumps up and charges at the
impossible--and conquers it! ... Some of the poor fellows who lay there
as they fell looked to me absolutely noble, and I thought of their
families who were aching for news of them and hoping against hope that
they would not be left unburied in their misery.

"All the loving and tender thoughts that are lavished on them are not
enough. There are no words to describe the large hearts of these men.
God bless 'em! And what of the French on whose soil they lie? Can they
ever forget the blood that is mingled with their own? I hope not. I
don't think England has ever had as much cause to be proud as she
has to-day."