LXIII

France |July 19|, 1918

We're all sitting round the table studying maps of the entire Western Front and prophesying the rapid downfall of the Hun. It's too early to be optimistic, but things are going excellently and the American weight is already beginning to be felt. It may take two years to reach the Rhine, but we shall get there. Until we do get there, I don't think we shall be content to stop. We may not all be above ground for the end, but people who are like us will be there.

My batman has just returned to the guns from the wagon-lines, bringing me two letters and a post-card. They were most welcome. After reading them I went out into the moonlight to walk over to the guns, and, such is the nature of this country, though the journey was only 200 yards, I lost myself. Everything that was once a landmark is levelled flat—there's nothing but shell-holes covered with tangled grass, barbed wire, exploded shell-cases, and graves. I can quite understand how men have wandered clean across No Man's Land and found themselves the guests of the Hun.

I think I once mentioned the man we have cooking for our mess at present—how he was no good as a cook until he got word that his wife had been drowned in Canada; his grief seemed to give him a new pride in himself and since his disaster our meals have been excellent. This morning I found a curious document on my table, which ran as follows: “Sir, I kan't cock without stuf to cock with.” I was at a loss to discover its meaning for some time. Why couldn't he cock? Why should he want to cock? How does one cock? And whether he could or couldn't cock, why should he worry me about it?

Then the widower presented himself, standing sooty and forlorn in the trench outside the mess. The mystery was cleared up.

The mess-cart is just up, and I'm going to send this off, that it may reach you a day earlier.

LXIV

France July 23, 1918

I'm sitting in my “summer-house” in the trench. One side is unwalled and exposed to the weather; a curtain of camouflage stretches over the front and disguises the fact that I am “in residence.” For the last twenty-four hours it's been raining like mad, blowing a hurricane and thundering as though all the clouds had a sneezing fit at once. You can imagine the state of the trenches and my own drowned condition when I returned to the battery this morning from my tour of duty up front. It seems hardly credible that in so short a time mud could become so muddy. However, I usually manage to enjoy myself. Yesterday while at the O.P. I read a ripping book by “Q.” with almost—not quite—the Thomas Hardy touch. It was called The Ship of Stars, and was published in 1899. Where it fails, when compared with Hardy, is in the thinness of its story and unreality of its plot. It has all the characters for a titanic drama, but having created them, “Q.” is afraid to let them be the brutes they would have been. How many novelists have failed through their determination to be quite gentlemanly, when merely to have been men would have made them famous! If ever I have a chance again I shall depict men as I have seen them out here—animals, capable of animal lusts, who have angels living in their hearts.