The moon had gone down, and inside Ypres the light of the distant flares
only glimmered faintly above the broken walls. In a tunnel of darkness
voices were speaking and some one was whistling softly, and a gleam of
red light made a bar across the grass. We walked toward a group of black
figures, suddenly silent at our approach--obviously startled.

"Who's there?" said a voice.

We were just in time for tea--a stroke of luck--with a company of boys
(all Kitchener lads from the Civil Service) who were spending the night
here. They had made a fire behind a screen to give them a little comfort
and frighten off the ghosts, and gossiped with a queer sense of humor,
cynical and blasphemous, but even through their jokes there was a
yearning for the end of a business which was too close to death.

I remember the gist of their conversation, which was partly devised for
my benefit. One boy declared that he was sick of the whole business.

"I should like to cancel my contract," he remarked.

"Yes, send in your resignation, old lad," said another, with ironical
laughter.

"They'd consider it, wouldn't they? P'raps offer a rise in wages--I
don't think!"

Another boy said, "I am a citizen of no mean Empire, but what the hell
is the Empire going to do for me when the next shell blows off both my
bleeding legs?"

This remark was also received by a gust of subdued laughter, silenced
for a moment by a roar and upheaval of masonry somewhere by the ruins of
the Cloth Hall.

"Soldiers are prisoners," said a boy without any trace of humor. "You're
lagged, and you can't escape. A 'blighty' is the best luck you can hope
for."

"I don't want to kill Germans," said a fellow with a superior accent.
"I've no personal quarrel against them; and, anyhow, I don't like
butcher's work."

"Christian service, that's what the padre calls it. I wonder if Christ
would have stuck a bayonet into a German stomach--a German with his
hands up. That's what we're asked to do."

"Oh, Christianity is out of business, my child. Why mention it? This is
war, and we're back to the primitive state--B.C. All the same, I say my
little prayers when I'm in a blue funk.

"Gentle Jesus, meek and mild, Look upon a little child."

This last remark was the prize joke of the evening, received with much
hilarity, not too loud, for fear of drawing fire--though really no
Germans could have heard any laughter in Ypres.

Nearby, their officer was spending the night. We