in fronts changing on the map
and began to weary of the accounts. It was the late Charles A. Dana who
is credited with saying: "If a dog bites a man it is not news, but if a
man bites a dog it is."

Let the men attack with hatchets and in evening dress and this would win
all the headlines in the land because people at their breakfast tables
would say: "Here is something new in the war!" Men killing men was not
news, but a battalion of trained bloodhounds sent out to bite the
Germans would have been. I used to try to hunt down some of the
"novelties" which received the favor of publication, but though they
were well known abroad the man in the trenches had heard nothing about
them.

Bullets, shells, bayonets and bombs remained the tried and practical
methods there on the Ridge with its overpowering drama, any act of which
almost any day was greater than Spionkop or Magersfontein which thrilled
a world that was not then war-stale; and ever its supreme feature was
that determination which was like a kind of fate in its progress of
chipping, chipping at a stone foundation that must yield.

The Ridge seeped in one's very existence. You could see it as clearly in
imagination as in reality, with its horizon under shell-bursts and the
slope with its maze of burrows and its battered trenches. Into those
calm army reports association could read many indications: the telling
fact that the German losses in being pressed off the Ridge were as great
if not greater than the British, their sufferings worse under a heavier
deluge of shell fire, the increased skill of the offensive and the
failure of German counter-attacks after each advance.

No one doubted that the Ridge would be taken and taken it was, or all of
it that was needed for the drive that was to clean up any outstanding
points, with its sweep down into the valley. A victory this, not to be
measured by territory; for in one day's rush more ground was gained
than in two months of siege. A victory of position, of will, of
_morale_! Sharpening its steel and wits on enemy steel and wits in every
kind of fighting, the New Army had proved itself in the supreme test of
all qualities.

XVIII

A TRULY FRENCH AFFAIR

A French lieutenant arm-in-arm with two privates--A luncheon at the
front--French regimental officers--Three and four stripes on the
sleeves for the number of wounds--Over the parapet twenty-three
times--Comradeship of soldiers--Monsieur Elan ag