r you're
welcome to try. But don't forget the singer is dry; Give the poor beggar
some beer!"

A touring company of mouth-organ musicians was having a great success
in the war zone. But, apart from all those organized methods of mirth,
there was a funny man in every billet who played the part of court
jester, and clowned it whatever the state of the weather or the risks
of war. The British soldier would have his game of "house" or "crown and
anchor" even on the edge of the shell-storm, and his little bit of
sport wherever there was room to stretch his legs. It was a jesting army
(though some of its jokes were very grim), and those who saw, as I did,
the daily tragedy of war, never ceasing, always adding to the sum of
human suffering, were not likely to discourage that sense of humor.

A successful concert with mouth-organs, combs, and tissue-paper and
penny whistles was given by the Guards in the front-line trenches near
Loos. They played old English melodies, harmonized with great emotion
and technical skill. It attracted an unexpected audience. The Germans
crowded into their front line--not far away--and applauded each number.
Presently, in good English, a German voice shouted across:

"Play 'Annie Laurie' and I will sing it."

The Guards played "Annie Laurie," and a German officer stood up on
the parapet--the evening sun was red behind him--and sang the old song
admirably, with great tenderness. There was applause on both sides.

"Let's have another concert to-morrow!" shouted the Germans.

But there was a different kind of concert next day, and the music
was played by trench-mortars, Mills bombs, rifle-grenades, and other
instruments of death in possession of the Guards. There were cries of
agony and terror from the German trenches, and young officers of the
Guards told the story as an amusing anecdote, with loud laughter.

XVI

It was astonishing how loudly one laughed at tales of gruesome things,
of war's brutality-I with the rest of them. I think at the bottom of it
was a sense of the ironical contrast between the normal ways of civilian
life and this hark-back to the caveman code. It made all our old
philosophy of life monstrously ridiculous. It played the "hat trick"
with the gentility of modern manners. Men who had been brought up to
Christian virtues, who had prattled their little prayers at mothers'
knees, who had grown up to a love of poetry, painting, music, the gentle
arts, over-sensitize