nk of bread, which
he had put within the lining of his tunic; it bulged out in front like a
paunch. An officer stopped to question him, and while the cross-
examination was proceeding a curio-hunting soldier came up behind
and cut a button off the tunic. We learnt that the lad was twenty-one
years of age, and that he had been called up in December 1914.
Before assisting in the conquest of France he was employed in a
paper factory. He tried to exhibit gloom, but it was impossible for him
quite to conceal his satisfaction in the fact that for him the fighting
was over. The wretched boy had had just about enough of world-
dominion, and he was ready to let the Hohenzollerns and Junkers
finish up the enterprise as best they could without his aid. No doubt,
some woman was his mother. It appeared to me that he could not
live long, and that the woman in question might never see him
again. But every ideal must have its victims; and bereavement,
which counts chief among the well-known advantageous moral
disciplines of war, is, of course, good for a woman's soul. Besides,
that woman would be convinced that her son died gloriously in
defence of an attacked Fatherland.

When we had got clear of prisoners and of the innumerable minor
tools of war, we came to something essential--namely, a map. This
map, which was shown to us rather casually in the middle of a
wood, was a very big map, and by means of different coloured
chalks it displayed the ground taken from the Germans month by
month. The yellow line showed the advance up to May; the blue line
showed the further advance up to June; and fresh marks in red
showed graphically a further wresting which had occurred only in the
previous night. The blue line was like the mark of a tide on a chart;
in certain places it had nearly surrounded a German position, and
shortly the Germans would have to retire from that position or be cut
off. Famous names abounded on that map--such as Souchez,
Ablain St. Nazaire, St. Eloi, Fonds de Buval. Being on a very large
scale, the map covered a comparatively small section of the front;
but, so far as it went, it was a map to be gazed upon with legitimate
pride.

The officers regarded it proudly. Eagerly they indicated where the
main pressures were, and where new pressures would come later.
Their very muscles seemed to be strained in the ardour of their
terrific intention to push out and destroy the invader. While
admitting, as all the officers I met