le,' 'Mucky Farm,' 'Lousy Wood,' and
'Martinpush.')

"What were your prisoners like?"

"'Alf clemmed," said the man from Manchester.

"No rations for three days," explained a Northumberland Fusilier close
by. One of his arms was strapped to his side, but the other still
clasped to his bosom a German helmet. A British Tommy will cheerfully
shed a limb or two in the execution of his duty, but not all the
might and majesty of the Royal Army Medical Corps can force him to
relinquish a fairly earned 'souvenir.' In fact, owing to certain
unworthy suspicions as to the true significance of the initials,
"R.A.M.C.," he has been known to refuse chloroform.

"They couldn't get nothing up to them for four days, on account of our
artillery fire," he added contentedly.

"'Barrage,' my lad!" amended a rather superior person with a
lance-corporal's stripe and a bandaged foot.

Indeed, all are unanimous in affirming that our artillery preparation
was a tremendous affair. Listen to this group of officers sunning
themselves upon the upper deck. They are 'walking cases,' and must
remain on board, with what patience they may, until all the'stretcher
cases' have been evacuated.

"Loos was child's play to it," says one--a member of a certain
immortal, or at least irrepressible Division which has taken part in
every outburst of international unpleasantness since the Marne. "The
final hour was absolute pandemonium. And when our new trench-mortar
batteries got to work too,--at sixteen to the dozen,--well, it was bad
enough for _us_; but what it must have been like at the business end
of things, Lord knows! For a few minutes I was almost a pro-Boche!"

Other items of intelligence are gleaned. The weather was 'rotten':
mud-caked garments corroborate this statement. The wire, on the whole,
was well and truly cut to pieces everywhere; though there were spots
at which the enemy contrived to repair it. Finally, ninety per cent.
of the casualties during the assault were due to machine-gun fire.

But the fact most clearly elicited by casual conversation is
this--that the more closely you engage in a battle, the less you know
about its progress. This ship is full of officers and men who were in
the thick of things for perhaps forty-eight hours on end, but who are
quite likely to be utterly ignorant of what was going on round the
next traverse in the trench which they had occupied. The wounded
Gunners are able to give them a good deal of inform