es there, and shrouded them tenderly. It was as
though all the doves of peace were flying down to fold their wings above
the obscene things of war.

For a little while the snow brought something like peace. The guns were
quieter, for artillery observation was impossible. There could be no
sniping, for the scurrying flakes put a veil between the trenches. The
airplanes which went up in the morning came down quickly to the powdered
fields and took shelter in their sheds. A great hush was over the war
zone, but there was something grim, suggestive of tragic drama, in this
silent countryside, so white even in the darkness, where millions of men
were waiting to kill one another.

Behind the lines the joke of the snow was seen by soldiers, who were
quick to see a chance of fun. Men who had been hurling bombs in the
Ypres salient bombarded one another with hand-grenades, which burst
noiselessly except for the shouts of laughter that signaled a good hit.

French soldiers were at the same game in one village I passed, where the
snow-fight was fast and furious, and some of our officers led an attack
upon old comrades with the craft of trappers and an expert knowledge of
enfilade fire. The white peace did not last long. The ermine mantle on
the battlefield was stained by scarlet patches as soon as men could see
to fight again.

XI

For some days in that February of 1916 the war correspondents in the
Chateau of Tilques, from which they made their expeditions to the line,
were snowed up like the army round them. Not even the motor-cars could
move through that snow which drifted across the roads. We sat indoors
talking--high treason sometimes--pondering over the problem of a
war from which there seemed no way out, becoming irritable with one
another's company, becoming passionate in argument about the ethics of
war, the purpose of man, the gospel of Christ, the guilt of Germany, and
the dishonesty of British politicians. Futile, foolish arguments,
while men were being killed in great numbers, as daily routine, without
result!

Officers of a division billeted nearby came in to dine with us, some of
them generals with elaborate theories on war and a passionate hatred of
Germany, seeing no other evil in the world; some of them brigadiers with
tales of appalling brutality (which caused great laughter), some of them
battalion officers with the point of view of those who said, "Morituri
te saluant!"

There was one whose co