bling along toward the east, the
men laughing and joking as they rode, as though they were going to
manoeuvres. Farther on, as the soldiers along the highroads and in the
towns grew more and more numerous, they seemed so harmoniously part of
the peaceful scene that war was as difficult to visualize as ever. Many
sat about smoking their pipes and playing with the village children,
others were in squads going to drill or exercise--something the Briton
never neglects. The amazing thing to a visitor who has seen the trenches
awash on a typical wet day, who knows that even billeting in cold farms
and barns behind the lines can scarcely be compared to the comforts of
home, is how these men keep well under the conditions. To say that they
are well is to understate the fact: the ruddy faces and clear eyes and
hard muscles--even of those who once were pale London clerks--proclaim a
triumph for the system of hygiene of their army.

Suddenly we came upon a house with a great round hole in its wall, and
then upon several in ruins beside the village street. Meanwhile, at work
under the windswept trees of the highway, were strange, dark men from
the uttermost parts of the earth, physiognomies as old as the tombs of
Pharaoh. It was, indeed, not so much the graven red profiles of priests
and soldiers that came tome at sight of these Egyptians, but the singing
fellaheen of the water-buckets of the Nile. And here, too, shovelling
the crushed rock, were East Indians oddly clad in European garb,
careless of the cold. That sense of the vastness of the British Empire,
which at times is so profound, was mingled now with a knowledge that it
was fighting for its life, marshalling all its resources for Armageddon.

Saint Eloi is named after the good bishop who ventured to advise King
Dagobert about his costume. And the church stands--what is left of
it--all alone on the greenest of terraces jutting out toward the east;
and the tower, ruggedly picturesque against the sky, resembles that
of some crumbled abbey. As a matter of fact, it has been a target for
German gunners. Dodging an army-truck and rounding one of those military
traffic policemen one meets at every important corner we climbed
the hill and left the motor among the great trees, which are still
fortunately preserved. And we stood for a few minutes, gazing over miles
and miles of devastation. Then, taking the motor once more, we passed
through wrecked and empty villages until we came t