ime being they were neither hunters nor hunted.
There were actually cows in the fields. At one point, where pollarded
trees stand like a Hobbema sketch against the sky, a group of officers
were coursing a hare, following a big black hound on horseback. We lost
our way. A drenching rainstorm fell over us--we didn't care; and we saw
as we looked back a most beautiful thing--a rainbow over green fields.
It was as romantic as the first rainbow in childhood.

All day I have been seeing lovely and familiar things as though for the
first time. I've been a sort of Lazarus, rising out of his tomb and
praising God at the sound of a divine voice. You don't know how
exquisite a ploughed field can look, especially after rain, unless you
have feared that you might never see one again.

I came to a grey little village, where civilians were still living, and
then to a gate and a garden. In the cottage was a French peasant woman
who smiled, patted my hair because it was curly, and chattered
interminably. The result was a huge omelette and a bottle of champagne.
Then came a touch of naughtiness--a lady visitor with a copy of _La Vie
Parisienne_, which she promptly bestowed on the English soldier. I read
it, and dreamt of the time when I should walk the Champs Elysees again.
It was growing dusk when I turned back to the noise of battle. There was
a white moon in a milky sky. Motor-bikes fled by me, great lorries
driven by Jehus from London buses, and automobiles which too poignantly
had been Strand taxis and had taken lovers home from the Gaiety. I
jogged along thinking very little, but supremely happy. Now I'm back at
the wagon-line; to-morrow I go back to the guns. Meanwhile I write to
you by a guttering candle.

Life, how I love you! What a wonderful kindly thing I could make of you
to-night. Strangely the vision has come to me of all that you mean. Now
I could write. So soon you may go from me or be changed into a form of
existence which all my training has taught me to dread. After death is
there only nothingness? I think that for those who have missed love in
this life there must be compensations--the little children whom they
ought to have had, perhaps. To-day, after so many weeks, I have seen
little children again.

And yet, so strange a havoc does this war work that, if I have to "Go
West," I shall go _proudly_ and quietly. I have seen too many men die
bravely to make a fuss if my turn comes. A mixed passenger list old
Father