tish coal, from pits where
grimy workmen dwell in the black country, and British sweat has to get
it out of the ground. Our grey lady was burning plenty of it, and when
she had done her work, she put up a banner of smoke, and steamed away
with a splendid air of dignity across the white-flecked sea. One knew
the men on board her! Probably not a heart beat quicker by a second for
all the German shells, probably dinner was served as usual, and men got
their tubs and had their clothes brushed when it was all over.

I went down to my kitchen a little late, but I had seen something that
Drake never saw--a bit of modern sea-fighting. And in the evening, when
I returned, my grey mistress had come back again. The sun was westering
now, and the sea had turned to gold, and the grey lady looked black
against the glare, but the fire of her guns was brighter than the
evening sunset, and she was a spit-fire, after all, this dignified
queen, and she, "let 'em have it," too, while the long, lean
torpedo-boats looked on.

I went to the kitchen; I gave out jam, I distributed socks, I heard the
fussy importance of minor officials, but I had something to work on
since I had seen the grey lady at work.

In the evening I dined quietly on the barge with Miss Close and Maxine
Elliott. We had a game of bridge--a thing I had not seen for a year and
more (the last time I played was down in Surrey at the Grange!), and the
little gathering on the old timbered barge was pleasant.

Some terrible stories of the war are coming through from the front. An
officer told us that when they take a trench, the only thing which
describes what the place is like is strawberry jam. Another said that in
one trench the sides were falling, and the Germans used corpses to make
a wall, and kept them in with piles fixed into the ground. Hundreds of
men remain unburied.

[Page Heading: GERMAN PRISONERS]

Some people say that the German gunners are chained to their guns. There
were six Germans at the station to-day, two wounded and four prisoners.
Individually I always like them, and it is useless to say I don't. They
are all polite and grateful, and I thought to-day, when the prisoners
were surrounded by a gaping crowd, that they bore themselves very well.
After all, one can't expect a whole nation of mad dogs. A Scotchman
said, "The ones opposite us (_i.e._, in the trenches) were a very
respectable lot of men."

The German prisoners' letters contain news that bat