fe, and to make men think about the mystery of human
nature, coerced to massacre by sovereign powers beyond their ken,
the winter passed, in one long wet agony, in one great bog of misery.

10

It was in March, when the roads had begun to dry up, that our troops
resumed the offensive at several points of the line. I was at General
Headquarters when the first news of the first day's attack at Neuve
Chapelle was brought in by dispatch riders.

We crowded again round a table where a staff officer had spread out
his map and showed us the general disposition of the troops engaged
in the operation. The vague tremor of distant guns gave a grim
significance to his words, and on our own journey that day we had
seen many signs of organized activity bearing upon this attack.

But we were to see a more impressive demonstration of the day's
success, the human counters which had been won by our side in this
game of life and death. Nearly a thousand German prisoners had
been taken, and were being brought down from the front by rail. If we
liked we might have a talk with these men, and see the character of
the enemy which lies hidden in the trenches opposite our lines. It was
nearly ten o'clock at night when we motored to the railway junction
through which they were passing.

Were they glad to be out of the game, away from the shriek of shells
and out of the mud? I framed the question in German as I clambered
on to the footboard at a part of the train where the trucks ended and
where German officers had been given the luxury of first-class
carriages.

Two of them looked up with drowsy eyes, into which there came a
look of surprise and then of displeasure as I spoke a few words to
them. Opposite me was a fair young man, with soft blond hair and a
silky moustache. He looked like a Saxon, but told me afterwards that
he came from Cologne. Next to him was a typical young aristocrat of
the Bavarian type, in the uniform of a Jaeger regiment In the same
carriage were some other officers sleeping heavily. One of them, with
a closely-cropped bullet head and the low-browed face of, a man who
fights according to the philosophy of Bernhardi, without pity, sat up
abruptly, swore a fierce word or two, and then fell back and snored
again.

The two younger men answered some of my questions, sullenly at
first, but afterwards with more friendliness, against which their pride
struggled. But they had not much to say. They were tired. They had