killed by one shell early that morning--boys that the night before we
had talked with down in a front-line hut--boys who had been killed in
their billet in one room. We had seen a captain come staggering into
our hut wet to the skin, soaked with blood, his hair dishevelled, his
face haggard. He had been fighting since three o'clock that morning.
He had been shell-shocked, and had been sent into the hospital.

"My God!" he cried, "I saw every officer in my company killed. First
it was my first lieutenant. They got him in the head. Then about ten
o'clock I saw my second lieutenant fall. Then early in the afternoon
my top-sergeant got a bayonet, and a hand-grenade got a group of my
non-commissioned officers. Half of my boys are gone."

Then he sat down and we got him some hot chocolate. This seemed to
revive his spirits, and he said: "But, thank God, we licked them! We
licked them at their own game! We got them six to one, and drove them
back! No Man's Land is thick with their beastly bodies. They are
hanging on the wires out there like trapped rabbits!"

Then the thoughts of his own officers came back.

"My God! Now we know what war means. We've been playing at war up to
this time. Now we've got to suffer! Then we'll know what it all
means." He was half-delirious, we could see, and sent for an ambulance.

As I drove home that night I passed the crossroads crucifix. This time
I needed no lights to guide me. The whole horizon was alight with
bursting shells and Very lights. Long before I got to it I could see
the gaunt form of the cross reaching its black but comforting arms up
against the background of lurid light along the front where I knew that