were driving his country, and no pride in them--he did not approve and
he did not disapprove. He seemed to accept them as part of the
unquestioned, unchangeable laws of his existence; they were there--and
what business was it of his to interfere with them?

One can scarcely see a gleam of hope for them in the attitude of their
prisoners--a people that cannot rebel. But perhaps it is unfair to
judge.

For these men, whom we now see, have been at long, long last through the
fire of guns heavier than their own; and through the mud of Le Barque.




CHAPTER XXXII

THE NEW DRAFT

_France, December 11th._


A fair-sized shell recently arrived in a certain front trench held by
Australians in France. It exploded, and an Australian found himself
struggling amongst some debris in No Man's Land. He tried to haul
himself clear, but the tumbled rubbish kept him down; and, as often as
he was seen to move, bullets whizzed past him from a green slope near
by. The green slope ran like a low railway embankment along the other
side of the unkempt paddock between the trenches. It was the German
front line.