At this point Tommy was forced to interrupt his long letter, for the Germans had at last got news of the relief and were attacking the sector. In vain.
Next day Tommy finished thus:
"My poilu was right. This corner can hardly be called a quiet one, and Fritz is a bad boy, there's no doubt about it. Thanks for your Christmas parcel. The pudding was A1. Good-bye.
"Tommy."
[PART III.]
THE ARMIES OF THE NORTH.
Flat calm on both sides of the Ancre; calm—or something like it—on the Somme. Let us take advantage of this apparent truce to get into rather closer touch with the British Army.
By this eight-day tour (though it has seemed, while we have been making it, a kind of intermezzo between two acts of the offensive) we had intended, particularly, to demonstrate to ourselves, by our study of the events and those who have enacted them, the dauntless determination with which our Allies, not satisfied to defend the heroic heritage which these battlefields of 1915 have bequeathed to them, now prepare for the future.