believe, a number of artists now engaged in
drawing out colour schemes for steamers. I have seen a mother ship of
hydroplanes which looked like a cubist picture.

Landsmen are more conservative and slower to grasp new ideas. But
even in my time in France tents were sometimes covered with broad
curves of bright colours. They looked very funny near at hand; but
they are--this seems to be established--much less easily seen by
airmen than white or brown tents. It seems a short step to take from
colouring tents to colouring uniforms. In the next war, if there be a
next war, regiments will perhaps move against the enemy gay as
kingfishers and quite as difficult to see. Fighting men will look to
each other like ladies in the beauty chorus of a revue. By the enemy
they will not be seen at all. War will not, in its essentials, be any
pleasanter, however we dress ourselves. Nothing can ever make a joy
of it. But at least those who take part in it will escape the curse
of khaki which lies heavily on us.

We suffered a good deal from want of music when I went out to France,
though things were better then than they had been earlier. They
certainly improved still further later on. Music in old days was
looked upon as an important thing in war. The primitive savage beat
drums of a rude kind before setting out to spear the warriors of the
neighbouring tribes. Joshua's soldiers stormed Jericho with the sound
of trumpets in their ears. Cromwell's men sang psalms as they went
forward. Montrose's highlanders charged to the skirl of their
bagpipes. Even a pacifist would, I imagine, charge if a good piper
played in front of him.

Our regiments had their bands, and many of them their special
marching tunes. But we somehow came to regard music as part of the
peace-time, ornamental side of soldiering. The mistake was natural
enough. Our military leaders recognised, far sooner than the rest of
us, that this war was going to be a grim and desperate business.
Bands struck them as out of place in it. Music was associated in
their minds with promenades at seaside resorts, with dinners at
fashionable restaurants, with ornamental cavalry evolutions at
military tournaments. We were not going to France to do musical
rides or to stroll about the sands of Boulogne with pretty ladies.
We were going to fight. Therefore, bands were better left at home. It
was a very natural mistake to make; but it was a mistake, and it is
all to the credit of the War Of