enters that grim region. In the areas to which those tired men come for
a spell, the Comforts Fund is beginning to give them theatres for
concert troupes and cinemas. It provides some hundreds of pounds to be
spent locally on the most obtainable small luxuries at Christmas,
besides such gifts in kind as Christmas brings.

But, for those who are actually in the front or just behind it, one cup
of warm coffee in a jam-tin from a roadside stall has been, in certain
times and places, all that can be given; the Fund has given that, and it
has been the landmark in the day for many men. In those conditions there
was but one occasional solace. A friend of mine found an Australian in
the trenches in those days, standing in mud nearly to his waist,
shivering in his arms and every body muscle, leaning back against the
trench side, fast asleep.




CHAPTER XXIX

AS IN THE WORLD'S DAWN

_France, December 20th._


Yesterday morning we were looking across a bare, shallow valley at the
opposite knuckle of hill-side, around the foot of which the valley
doubled back out of sight. A solitary grey line of broken earth ran like
a mole burrow up the bare knuckle and vanished over the top. A line of
bare, dead willow stumps marked a few yards of the hollow below. On the