but she floats on serenely, a thing of delicate beauty against the blue
background. Now another passes--and yet another. All morning we saw
them circling and swooping, and never a sign of a Boche. They tell me
it is nearly always so--that we hold the air, and that the Boche
intruder, save at early morning, is a rare bird. A visit to the line
would reassure Mr. Pemberton-Billing. 'We have never met a British
aeroplane which was not ready to fight,' said a captured German aviator
the other day. There is a fine stern courtesy between the airmen on
either side, each dropping notes into the other's aerodromes to tell
the fate of missing officers. Had the whole war been fought by the
Germans as their airmen have conducted it (I do not speak of course of
the Zeppelin murderers), a peace would eventually have been more easily
arranged. As it is, if every frontier could be settled, it would be a
hard thing to stop until all that is associated with the words Cavell,
Zeppelin, Wittenberg, Lusitania, and Louvain has been brought to the
bar of the world's Justice.

And now we are there--in what is surely the most wonderful spot in the
world, the front firing trench, the outer breakwater which holds back
the German tide. How strange that this monstrous oscillation of giant
forces, setting in from east to west, should find their equilibrium
here across this particular meadow of Flanders. 'How far?' I ask. '180
yards,' says my guide. 'Pop!' remarks a third person just in front. 'A
sniper,' says my guide; 'take a look through the periscope.' I do so.
There is some rusty wire before me, then a field sloping slightly
upwards with knee-deep grass, then rusty wire again, and a red line of
broken earth. There is not a sign of movement, but sharp eyes are
always watching us, even as these crouching soldiers around me are
watching them. There are dead Germans in the grass before us. You need
not see them to know that they are there. A wounded soldier sits in a