war the
colonel had commanded in Africa the regiment into which criminals are
drafted as a punishment. To keep them in hand requires both imagination
and the direct methods of a bucko mate on a whaler. When the colonel was
promoted to his present command he found the men did not place much
confidence in the gas masks, so he filled a shelter with poisoned air,
equipped a squad with protectors and ordered them to enter. They went
without enthusiasm, but when they found they could move about with
impunity the confidence of the entire command in the anti-gas masks was
absolute.

The colonel was very vigilant against these gas attacks. He had equipped
the only shelter I have seen devoted solely to the preparation of
defenses against them. We learned several new facts concerning this
hideous form of warfare. One was that the Germans now launch the gas
most frequently at night when the men cannot see it approach, and, in
consequence, before they can snap the masks into place, they are
suffocated, and in great agony die. They have learned much about the
gas, but chiefly by bitter experience. Two hours after one of the
attacks an officer seeking his field-glasses descended into his shelter.
The gas that had flooded the trenches and then floated away still lurked
below. And in a moment the officer was dead. The warning was instantly
flashed along the trenches from the North Sea to Switzerland, and now
after a gas raid, before any one enters a shelter, it is attacked by
counter-irritants, and the poison driven from ambush.

I have never seen better discipline than obtained in that chalk quarry,
or better spirit. There was not a single outside element to aid
discipline or to inspire morale. It had all to come from within. It had
all to spring from the men themselves and from the example set by their
officers. The enemy fought against them, the elements fought against
them, the place itself was as cheerful as a crutch. The clay climbed
from their feet to their hips, was ground into their uniforms, clung to
their hands and hair. The rain chilled them, the wind, cold, damp, and
harsh, stabbed through their greatcoats. Their outlook was upon graves,
their resting-places dark caverns, at which even a wolf would look with
suspicion. And yet they were all smiling, eager, alert. In the whole
command we saw not one sullen or wistful face.

It is an old saying: "So the colonel, so the regiment."

But the splendid spirit I saw on the heig