feed her. She is an important person is 'Mother,' and her importance
grows. It gets clearer with every month that it is she, and only she,
who can lead us to the Rhine. She can and she will if the factories of
Britain can beat those of the Hun. See to it, you working men and women
of Britain. Work now if you rest for ever after, for the fate of Europe
and of all that is dear to us is in your hands. For 'Mother' is a
dainty eater, and needs good food and plenty. She is fond of strange
lodgings, too, in which she prefers safety to dignity. But that is a
dangerous subject.

* * * * *

One more experience of this wonderful day--the most crowded with
impressions of my whole life. At night we take a car and drive north,
and ever north, until at a late hour we halt and climb a hill in the
darkness. Below is a wonderful sight. Down on the flats, in a huge
semi-circle, lights are rising and falling. They are very brilliant,
going up for a few seconds and then dying down. Sometimes a dozen are
in the air at one time. There are the dull thuds of explosions and an
occasional rat-tat-tat. I have seen nothing like it, but the nearest
comparison would be an enormous ten-mile railway station in full swing
at night, with signals winking, lamps waving, engines hissing and
carriages bumping. It is a terrible place down yonder, a place which
will live as long as military history is written, for it is the Ypres
Salient. What a salient it is, too! A huge curve, as outlined by the
lights, needing only a little more to be an encirclement. Something
caught the rope as it closed, and that something was the British
soldier. But it is a perilous place still by day and by night. Never
shall I forget the impression of ceaseless, malignant activity which
was borne in upon me by the white, winking lights, the red sudden