but it did
seem to me to be a fine waste of ammunition, and a very stupid
application of a scientific ideal; for while shelling it the Germans
must have noticed that there was nothing at all on the road. We
naturally decided not to go up that road in the car, but to skulk
through a wood and meet the car in a place of safety. The car had,
sooner or later, to go up the road, because there was not another
road. The Commandant who was with us was a very seasoned
officer, and he regarded all military duties as absolute duties. The
car must return along that road. Therefore, let it go. The fact that it
was a car serving solely for the convenience of civilians did not
influence him. It was a military car, driven by a soldier.

"You may as well go at once," he said to the chauffeur. "We will
assist at your agony. What do you say?" he laughingly questioned a
subordinate.

"Ah! My Commandant," said the junior officer cautiously, "when it is
a question of the service------"

We should naturally have protested against the chauffeur
adventuring upon the shell-swept road for our convenience; but he
was diplomatic enough to postpone the journey. After a time the
shelling ceased, and he passed in safety. He told us when we met
him later for the drive home that there were five large holes in the
road.

On another occasion, when we were tramping through interminable
communication-trenches on a slope, a single rash exposure of two
of our figures above the parapet of the trench drew down upon us a
bombardment of high-explosive. For myself, I was completely
exhausted by the excursion, which was nearing its end, and also I
was faint from hunger. But immediately the horrible sizzling sound
overhead and an explosion just in front made it plain to me that we
were to suffer for a moment's indiscretion, I felt neither fatigue nor
hunger. The searching shells fell nearer to us. We ran in couples,
with a fair distance between each couple, according to instructions,
along the rough, sinuous inequalities of the deep trench. After each
visitation we had to lie still and count five till all the fragments of
shell had come to rest. At last a shell seemed to drop right upon me.
The earth shook under me. My eyes and nose were affected by the
fumes of the explosion. But the shell had not dropped right upon
me. It had dropped a few yards to the left. A trench is a wonderful
contrivance. Immediately afterwards, a friend picked up in the trench
one of