t.
And, somehow, life had survived in those bruised and battered
gardens, and the delicious mess of gooseberries that we had for
dessert stood as proof thereof.

The meal was seasoned by good talk. I love to hear the young British
officers talk. It is a liberal education. They have grown so wise,
those boys! Those of them who come back when the war is over will
have the world at their feet, indeed. Nothing will be able to stop
them or to check them in their rise. They have learned every great
lesson that a man must learn if he is to succeed in the affairs of
life. Self control is theirs, and an infinite patience, and a dogged
determination that refuses to admit that there are any things that a
man cannot do if he only makes up his mind that he must and will do
them. For the British army has accomplished the impossible, time
after time; it has done things that men knew could not be done.

And so we sat and talked, as we smoked, after the meal, until the
major rose, at last, and invited me to walk around the battery again
with him. I could ask questions now, having seen the men at work, and
he explained many things I wanted to know--and which Fritz would like
to know, too, to this day! But above all I was fascinated by the work
of the gunners. I kept trying, in my mind's eye, to follow the course
of the shells that were dispatched so calmly upon their errands of
destruction. My imagination played with the thought of what they were
doing at the other end of their swift voyage through the air. I
pictured the havoc that must be wrought when one made a clean hit.

And, suddenly, I was swept by that same almost irresistible desire to
be fighting myself that had come over me when I had seen the other
battery. If I could only play my part! If I could fire even a single
shot--if I, with my own hands, could do that much against those who
had killed my boy! And then, incredulously, I heard the words in my
ear. It was the major.

"Would you like to try a shot, Harry?" he asked me.

Would I? I stared at him. I couldn't believe my ears. It was as if he
had read my thoughts. I gasped out some sort of an affirmative. My
blood was boiling at the very thought, and the sweat started from my
pores.

"All right--nothing easier!" said the major, smiling. "I had an idea
you were wanting to take a hand, Harry."

He led me toward one of the guns, where the sweating crew was
especially active, as it seemed to me. They grinned at me as th