is fighting that gets nowhere," he replied. "If our
men, after such an attack, could advance, could do anything but crawl
back into holes full of water and mud, you would see them gay and
smiling to-day."

After a time I discovered that the same situation holds to a certain
extent in all the armies. If his fighting gets him anywhere the
soldier is content. The line has made a gain. What matter wet
trenches, discomfort, freezing cold? The line has made a gain. It is
lack of movement that sends their spirits down, the fearful boredom of
the trenches, varied only by the dropping shells, so that they term
themselves, ironically, "Cannon food."

We left the victorious company behind, making their way toward
whatever church bedded down with straw, or coach-house or drafty barn
was to house them for their rest period.

"They have been fighting waist-deep in water," said the Commandant,
"and last night was cold. The British soldier rubs his body with oil
and grease before he dresses for the trenches. I hope that before long
our men may do this also. It is a great protection."

I have in front of me now a German soldier's fatigue cap, taken by one
of those men from a dead soldier who lay in front of the trench.

It is a pathetic cap, still bearing the crease which showed how he
folded it to thrust it into his pocket. When his helmet irked him in
the trenches he was allowed to take it <off and put this on. He
belonged to Bavarian Regiment Number Fifteen, and the cap was given
him in October, 1914. There is a blood-stain on one side of it. Also
it is spotted with mud inside and out. It is a pathetic little cap,
because when its owner died, that night before, a thousand other
Germans died with him, died to gain a trench two hundred yards from
their own line, a trench to capture which would have gained them
little but glory, and which, since they failed, lost them everything,
even life itself.

We were out of the town by this time, and started on the road to
Ypres. Between Poperinghe and Ypres were numerous small villages with
narrow, twisting streets. They were filled with soldiers at rest, with
tethered horses being re-shod by army blacksmiths, with small fires in
sheltered corners on which an anxious cook had balanced a kettle.

In each town a proclamation had been nailed to a wall and the
townspeople stood about it, gaping.

"An inoculation proclamation," explained the Commandant. "There is
typhoid here, so the civilia