hould know nothing; but sometimes one
wonders, when they talk so glibly of the trenches, when they dismiss
with a casual word the many months of hideous boredom, the few moments
of blood-red passion of the overseas life, what would they think--how
would they look--if they did know.

Would they look as did O'Neil's bride, when the robber chief's head
arrived at the breakfast table? Lest there be any unfortunates who
know not Kipling let me quote:

As a derelict ship drifts away with the tide
The Captain went out on the Past from his Bride,
Back, back, through the springs to the chill of the year,
When he hunted the Boh from Maloon to Tsaleer.
As the shape of a corpse dimmers up through deep water,
In his eye lit the passionless passion of slaughter,
And men who had fought with O'Neil for the life
Had gazed on his face with less dread than his wife. . . .

Perhaps--who knows? It is difficult to imagine the results of an
impossibility--and knowledge in this case is an impossibility. Still
at times the grim cynicism of the whole thing comes over one with a
rush, and one--laughs. It is the only solution--laughter. Let us blot
it out, all this strange performance in France: let us eat, drink and
be merry. But some quotations are better not finished. . . .

"Come and join us at our table." A girl was speaking, an awfully dear
girl, one to whom I had been among the many "also rans." Her
husband--an officer in the infantry--grinned affably from another table.

"In a moment," I answered her, "I will come, and you won't like me at
all when I do." Then I remembered something. "Why do you dine with
that scoundrel?"

"Who?--My funny old Dick? A dreadful sight, isn't he, but quite
harmless."

"Is he? You ask him about the German at Les Boeufs whom he met
unexpectedly, and see what he says."

The "Ballad of Boh da Thone" came back--the humour of it. Dick--the
old blackguard--a rifle butt, and a German's head after he'd hit
it--one side; a boiled shirt, dress clothes, and a general air of
complacent peacefulness--the other. And the girl: it is always the
girl who points the contrast. . . .

I laughed. "Go away, and talk to your harmless husband. I am wrapped
in thought, or was, till you disturbed me."

What did she know--God bless her--of the details, the filthy, necessary
details of war. To her it was just a parting from one man, who went
into an unknown land where there was danger--hide