war!"
"This horrible game of war," writes another man, "goes on
passionately in our corner. In seventy-four days we have progressed
about 1200 yards. That tells you everything. Ground is gained, so to
speak, by the inch, and we all know now how much it costs to get
back a bit of free France."

6

Along the French lines Death did not rest from his harvesting
whatever the weather, and although for months there was no general
advance on either side, not a day passed without new work for the
surgeons, the stretcher-bearers, and the gravediggers. One incident
is typical of a hospital scene near the front. It was told in a letter from
a hospital nurse to a friend in Paris.

"About midday we received a wounded general, whom we made as
comfortable as possible in a little room. Although he suffered terribly,
he would submit to no special care, and only thought of the comfort of
two of his officers. By an extraordinary chance a soldier of his own
regiment was brought in a few moments later. Joy of the general, who
wanted to learn at once what had happened to his children. He asked
to see the soldier immediately:

"'Tell me--the commandant?'

"'Dead, mon general.'

"'And the captain?'

"'Dead, mon general.'

"Four times questions were asked, and four times the soldier, whose
voice became lower, made his answer of death. Then the general
lowered his head and asked no more. We saw the tears running
down his scarred old face, and we crept out of the room on tip-toe."

7

In spite of all this tragedy, the French soldier into whose soul it sank,
and who will never forget, wrote home with a gaiety which gleamed
through the sadness of his memories. There was a new series of
"Lettres de mon moulin" from a young officer of artillery keeping
guard in an old mill-house in an important position at the front. They
were addressed to his "dearest mamma," and, thoughtful of all the
pretty hands which had been knitting garments for him, he described
his endeavours to keep warm in them:

"To-night I have piled on to my respectable body a flannel waistcoat,
a flannel shirt, and a flannel belt going round three times, a jacket with
sleeves sent by mamma herself, a leather waistcoat from Aunt
Charlotte, a woollen vest which came to me from the unknown
mother of a young dragoon, a warm undercoat recently received from
my tailor, and a woollen jacket and wrap knitted by Madame P. J. So I
prepare to sleep in peace, if the Boches