temperature he is segregated there, preparatory to being sent down to
No. 14 Stationary to have his spinal fluid examined by the
bacteriologists. Here, in fact, the man and his kit, instead of being
thrown on the scrap-heap, are renewed and made whole, restored in mind,
body, and estate, his clothes disinfected and mended, the "snipers"
treated to a hot iron, and his razor and tooth-brush replaced.

For true it is that at the Base they study loving-kindness, and
chaplains and doctors and nurses are busy with delicate ministries
seeking to cure, to assuage, and to console. Alas! on what tragic
errands do so many come and go; parents like Joseph and Mary seeking
their child, and wives their husbands, in hope, in fear, in joy, in
anguish, too often finding that the bright spirit has returned to God
Who gave it, and that nothing is left but to follow him behind the bier
draped with the Union Jack to the little cemetery on the hill.... But
for one that is buried here a thousand lie where they fell. Those
stricken fields of Flanders! nevermore will they be for us the scene of
an idle holiday; they will be a place of pilgrimage and a shrine of
prayer. I well remember--I can never forget--a journey I made in the
company of a French staff officer over the country that lies between
Paris and the river Aisne. We came out on a wide rolling plain, and in
the waning light of a winter's day we suddenly saw among the stubble and
between the oat-ricks, far as the eye could reach, thousands of little
tricolour flags fluttering in the breeze. By each flag was a wooden
cross. By each cross was a soldier's képi, and sometimes a coat,
bleached by the sun and rain. Instinctively we bared our heads, and as
we walked from one grave to another I could hear the orderly behind us
muttering words of prayer. That lonely oratory was the battlefield of
the Marne. Seasons will come and go, man will plough and sow, the earth
will yield her increase, but those graves will never be disturbed by