THE BISHOP OF LONDON'S VISIT TO THE FRONT

This is an account of how a Bishop of the Church of England visited the troops at the front. He went to France as the guest of Sir John French, Field Marshall of the British Army, to spend Holy Week and Easter with the troops. The chaplain who relates these experiences was one of the guests. He said before he left London, the Bishop received most cordial letters of God-speed from the Bishops of Canterbury and York. The Bishop's first evening in France was spent at the Soldiers' Institute at Boulogne, and this building was packed with soldiers at a concert. He then started in a motor car for the headquarters of the British Army, where he was received by the Field Marshall with all the members of the staff. A complete record of his journeys has been published by Longmans, Green and Company, with whose permission the following chapter is here presented.

[4] I—HOLY COMMUNION AT THE FRONT

It was in —— that the Bishop for the first time came close to the actual front and within range of the German guns. The cars were at the door of the house where the Bishop was billeted, in a quiet little side-street, at 6:45 in the morning, for an early start had been arranged.

We drove through the narrow streets to one of the large Hospitals in the town, where he celebrated the Holy Communion at seven o'clock for those of the officers and patients who wished to attend. After this service the other patients came in for morning prayers, at which the Bishop said a few words to them. It was invariably the case, when the Bishop visited a hospital, that there were many patients who wished to have a word with him. There were always, also, some men to whom, for some special reason, the Medical Officer or Chaplain wished to take him, and not infrequently in the Officers' Hospitals there were men whom he knew personally.

It was, therefore, a hard task to keep up to time in saying "Good-bye" at a hospital, and Mr. Macpherson, whom the Bishop soon called his "nigger-driver," and who was responsible for seeing that the time-table was strictly kept—a task of considerable difficulty—had generally to remind the Bishop at a suitable moment that his car was waiting at the door.

In a few minutes we had arrived at the Jute Factory again, where thirty men were ready and waiting to be confirmed in the little Chapel which has been carefully partitioned off in one corner of the building.

It had been arranged that on this day the Bishop should visit some of the London Regiments that have recently gone to the front. Naturally he always looked forward with special eagerness to an opportunity of meeting, in these fresh surroundings, London men, to so many of whom he has spoken and preached in his diocese. Fortunately he was able in the course of the week to visit nearly all these regiments, although some of the men who were in the trenches could not, of course, be present at his services. To us, coming out from London, it was a great source of satisfaction and pride to hear of the high esteem in which these Territorial regiments are held by the leaders of our Army.

It was not a very long time, as the motors slipped along the quiet country roads, before we began to hear the distant sound of guns, and as long as we were within a short distance of the firing-line there was seldom an hour in which guns could not be distinctly heard.

Here and there, too, could be seen a battery hidden beneath a belt of trees, or sheltered under the hedge by the side of the road. We were curious to see how the countryside would look after its long occupation by the British Army. We had expected, perhaps, to see more signs of war, although we had not known what to anticipate.

Beyond the fact that there were many bodies of troops moving on the roads, and that many farms and other large houses had notices fixed up outside to show they were the Headquarters of some unit, there was nothing, as a rule, except in the areas which have been actually shelled, to give any indication of the terrible nature of the struggle which is being waged so close at hand. Indeed, if the road took us to the top of one of the few hills in that country, and we looked out over the landscape, just beginning to show the first touches of spring, it was almost impossible to realize that between us and the horizon stretched that long valley of trenches which divides the two great armies.

When we drove along the roads at some distance from the actual front, it was often hard to believe that this was the real seat of war; but a passing transport wagon or a patrol of cavalry riding by soon reminded us of stern realities. The recent absence of rain, and the warm sun, had caused the roads to dry up considerably, and many officers seemed to be quite disappointed not to be able to show us many samples of the mud to which they had become so accustomed, and of which we had heard so much. We wondered, also, very much how the men would look after their hard and trying winter. Certainly I was surprised to notice how very clean and tidy they invariably appeared to be; although, of course, uniforms must show signs of wear and tear. In every case, except where the men were actually fresh from the trenches, the Battalions presented a smart appearance.

II—SOLDIERS SINGING: "JESUS LOVER OF MY SOUL"

At our first halt a Battalion of the London Regiment was drawn up on parade in a field, and for the first time we opened the large red box and handed round the hymn-sheets. It was here that we were to begin to understand the wonderful uplifting power of our great English hymns when they are sung on great occasions. After all, the heart of a nation is often to be found in its hymns. They express a simple theology in simple terms, and words and tunes of hymns learned in childhood are very dear to men, even if in the rush of life they have not, as many said, "found much time for religion before I came to France." The Bishop had chosen hymns which he knew would be familiar to all the men of all denominations.

Only four hymns were sung throughout the week—"When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," "Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me," "There Is a Green Hill Far Away," and "Jesus, Lover of My Soul"—hymns which are known throughout the world wherever British men have gone. There was no necessity to have an accompaniment, for everybody knew the tunes. Once or twice a band was present, and now and then a small harmonium was used, but as a rule the hymns were sung unaccompanied, except by the thunder of the guns.

It is always moving and inspiring to join in hymns when they are sung by large bodies of men, especially when those hymns have been associated with great moments in our lives, but never before can these familiar tunes have had such a setting; never, certainly, have they been sung more reverently or with greater earnestness. Perhaps, as children they liked the tunes best, but now that they have become men and put away childish things, the soldiers think first of the words.

How much those words meant to many hearts no one but He to Whom all hearts are open can ever know; but that they moved thoughts too deep for words was clearly written on every face in those great gatherings of men. As they must have raised many memories of childhood in the hearts of many of the men, so now they will in future years be sung by many with another and a deeper memory of the occasions when they were sung upon the battlefields of Flanders in the days of the Great War.

There was one verse in the Gospels which was continually in my mind at these great services. In Holy Week, of course, we were often thinking of that last night of our Lord with His disciples in the upper room at Jerusalem before He went out to His great battle in Gethsemane, and on the Cross: "When they had sung an hymn, they went out into the Mount of Olives."

We were with men at the great moments of their lives, many of them having come straight out of the trenches, many going back to the trenches in but a few moments after we had left them—men who had been in battle, and men who were preparing for battle. Nobody who was present at those services would ever forget what it meant to say: "And when they had sung a hymn, they went back to the trenches."

Every service, of course, was closed with the National Anthem. At the front, men seem instinctively to know that this great hymn is in reality a prayer, and on not a few occasions the whole body of men reverently sang "Amen" at the conclusion of the last line. So also "God Save the King" will have won for itself an even deeper place in the hearts of men than that which it has held for so many generations.

From the open field, it was not far to pass on to a little French town where another regiment was drawn up in the principal square. No more suitable place could have been chosen for a service, and a wagon, which served as a pulpit for the Bishop, was just in front of the western door of the fine old church.

III—"THE KINGDOM OF GOD"—NEAR THE GUNS

To see a Bishop of the Anglican Communion preaching in France at the door of a Roman Catholic church raised many thoughts in my mind. I could not but hope that these days of trial may draw the Allies together by something that is deeper than the bonds of friendship. We had heard not infrequently of the sympathetic help which is being offered by many priests of the Roman Catholic Church to our own Chaplains, and I thought, as many are thinking at this time, that if the war could serve in any way to help the two great Communions to understand better their distinctive points of view, some real step will have been taken to advance the cause of the Kingdom of God. This service was reverently watched by a considerable number of the inhabitants of the place.

After holding a short service for two batteries near their guns, the Bishop came to another open square where a Brigade was assembled, which included a regiment almost, if not entirely, recruited from East London. The East Londoner has his own unique characteristics, and his friends will be glad to know that he is just as cheerful and bright in France at war as he is in England in times of peace. It was hard to distinguish faces, but as the regiment swung by the place where I was standing, I saw many who remembered me from the time that I spent at Oxford House, and they waved just as hearty a greeting from the ranks as they used to wave from the top of a van in the Bethnal Green Road five years ago.

The deepest note on this day was struck when we came to a little town filled with British troops, a very large number of whom had been recently engaged in heavy fighting. The Chaplain had sent a notice throughout one Division that the Bishop would hold a short service in the evening for officers, and that this would be followed by a service for non-commissioned officers and men. As he entered the large hall which is used for a church in that town, he found at least five hundred officers, including many Generals, waiting in silence. They had come, some of them, from considerable distances, and almost every officer who was off duty in that district must have been present. It was only a bare, whitewashed building, with a hard stone floor, and a little platform at the end, but in it were gathered together some of the flower of the British Army.

There were Generals kneeling side by side with subalterns—men who had faced together the terrible ordeal of battle. Those who were present will surely never forget the silence and reverence of that service.

IV—THE CANADIANS—AND A BENEDICTION

After so long a day the Bishop was naturally beginning to feel tired, and his voice began to show signs of the great tax which frequent speaking in the open air had placed upon it. But there was one more gathering at which he was to be present, and in many ways this was the most striking and memorable of the whole Mission.

The Canadians were there, and they wished to see him. That was quite enough for the Bishop. His two visits to the Dominion have made Canada very dear to his heart, and to Canada he will always give of his best. It was not far to go to the large open square in the town where the Canadians were waiting for him. The square was packed with men, and in the center was a statue or fountain—I really could not distinguish which, so completely was it concealed by the men sitting and standing upon it.

The last rays of the sun came across the old tiled roofs, and lent a touch of color to the scene. On one side of the square was the Town Hall, and the Bishop stood in the balcony, surrounded by the General and staff officers. It was a moving sight to look down from the balcony of this old French Town Hall upon this great gathering of men who had come so many thousands of miles from their homes to fight for the honor of the Empire. There was no opportunity for an ordinary service. The gathering darkness would have made it impossible for the men to read, and, even if it had been lighter, the men were so closely packed together that hymn-sheets could not have been held.

It is always difficult to estimate numbers, but someone said that nearly ten thousand men must have been present. When the Bishop appeared on the balcony there was a Canadian cheer. He is well known in the Dominion, and the volume of sound left no doubt as to the warmth of feeling with which he is regarded there.

"This is a sight," he began, "which reminds me of Montreal and Toronto."

"How about Winnipeg?" came a voice from the crowd, and the men all laughed. It was a glorious chance to tell them of the way in which the Mother Country appreciates the splendid loyalty with which her sons beyond the seas have rallied at the Empire's call, and the Bishop was not slow to let them know that we in Great Britain rejoice to feel that the men of Canada and the men of Britain are standing shoulder to shoulder in France. And then they cheered again.

"Yes, you may cheer that," he added, "while I get breath for the next sentence." He passed on to speak of the great cause of the freedom of the world for which the Empire and the Allies are fighting to-day. Canada, the great self-governing Dominion—free, and yet part of the Empire—would understand what freedom means.

"Yes, you may cheer that too," the Bishop said, "while I get breath again."

And then, as he turned to deeper thoughts and closed, he added: "Now we will all together say the Lord's Prayer." In a flash there was not a cap to be seen in the square, but only the bared heads of that great throng of men reverently bent forward in prayer. Then, in absolute silence, the Bishop gave the Blessing, and as he left the balcony a staff officer turned to me and said: "That is a really great man."

"GRAPES OF WRATH"—WITH THE "BIG PUSH" ON THE SOMME

Boyd Cable has suddenly become one of the foremost word painters of active fighting—"the greatest literary discovery of the War." He is primarily a man of action. At the age of twenty, he joined a corps of Scouts in the Boer War and fought in South Africa. He then became a traveler and spent some time in Australia and New Zealand, in the Philippines, Java and the Islands of the Pacific. He is a "knight of adventure"—he has been an ordinary seaman, a typewriter agent, a steamer fireman, office manager, hobo, gold prospector, coach driver, navvy. He was one of the first men not in the Regular Army to get a commission and be sent to the front in 1914. As an observation officer in the artillery, he was "spotted" by the enemy sharpshooters, got a bullet through his cap, one through the inside of his sleeve close to his heart, and fifty-three others near enough for him to hear them pass—all in less than an hour. After eighteen months of this death-defying work without even a wound, he was invalided home on account of stomach trouble and then began to write of his adventures. His books, "Behind the Line," "Action Front," and "Doing Their Bit," are acknowledged to be the most vivid and stimulating pictures of the War as seen by the men in the trenches. We here record his story of the tanks from his volume of tales entitled "Grapes of Wrath," by permission of his publishers, E. P. Dutton and Company: Copyright 1917.

[5] I—STORY OF "KENTUCKY"—AN AMERICAN IN THE BRITISH TRENCHES

Soon after Kentucky rejoined them the Stonewalls were moved forward a little clear of the village they had helped to take, just as one or two heavy shells whooped over from the German guns and dropped crashing on the ground that had been theirs. The men were spread out along shell holes and told to dig in for better cover because a bit of a redoubt on the left flank hadn't been taken and bullets were falling in enfilade from it.

"Dig, you cripples," said the sergeant, "dig in. Can't you see that if they counter-attack from the front now you'll get shot in the back while you're lining the front edge of those shell holes. Get to it there, you Pug."

"Shot in the back, linin' the front," said Pug as the sergeant passed on. "Is it a conundrum, Kentuck?"

"Sounds sort of mixed," admitted Kentucky. "But it's tainted some with the truth. That redoubt is half rear to us. If another lot comes at us in front and we get up on the front edge of this shell hole, there's nothing to stop the redoubt bullets hitting us in the back. Look at that," he concluded, nodding upward to where a bullet had smacked noisily into the mud above their heads as they squatted in the hole.

The two commenced wearily to cut out with their trenching tools a couple of niches in the sides of the crater which would give them protection from the flank and rear bullets. They made reasonably secure cover and then stayed to watch a hurricane bombardment that was developing on the redoubt. "Goo on the guns," said Pug joyfully. "That's the talk; smack 'em about."

The gunners "smacked 'em about" with fifteen savage minutes' deluge of light and heavy shells, blotting out the redoubt in a whirlwind of fire-flashes, belching smoke clouds and dust haze. Then suddenly the tempest ceased to play there, lifted and shifted and fell roaring in a wall of fire and steel beyond the low slope which the redoubt crowned.

With past knowledge of what the lift and the further barrage meant the two men in the shell-pit turned and craned their necks and looked out along the line.

"There they go," said Pug suddenly, and "Attacking round a half-circle," said Kentucky. The British line was curved in a horseshoe shape about the redoubt and the two being out near one of the points could look back and watch clearly the infantry attack launching from the center and half-way round the sides of the horseshoe. They saw the khaki figures running heavily, scrambling round and through the scattered shell holes, and presently, as a crackle of rifle fire rose and rose and swelled to a sullen roar with the quick, rhythmic clatter of machine guns beating through it, they saw also the figures stumbling and falling, the line thinning and shredding out and wasting away under the withering fire.

The sergeant dodged along the pit-edge above them. "Covering fire," he shouted, "at four hundred—slam it in," and disappeared. The two opened fire, aiming at the crest of the slope and beyond the tangle of barbed wire which alone indicated the position of the redoubt.

They only ceased to fire when they saw the advanced fringe of the line, of a line by now woefully thinned and weakened, come to the edge of the barbed wire and try to force a way through it.

"They're beat," gasped Pug. "They're done in ..." and cursed long and bitterly, fingering nervously at his rifle the while. "Time we rung in again," said Kentucky. "Aim steady and pitch 'em well clear of the wire." The two opened careful fire again while the broken remnants of the attacking line ran and hobbled and crawled back or into the cover of shell holes. A second wave flooded out in a new assault, but by now the German artillery joining in helped it and the new line was cut down, broken and beaten back before it had covered half the distance to the entanglements. Kentucky and Pug and others of the Stonewalls near them could only curse helplessly as they watched the tragedy and plied their rifles in a slender hope of some of their bullets finding those unseen loopholes and embrasures.

II—HIS MAJESTY'S LAND SHIP—"WE ARE HERE"

"An' wot's the next item o' the program, I wonder?" said Pug half an hour after the last attack had failed, half an hour filled with a little shooting, a good deal of listening to the pipe and whistle of overhead bullets and the rolling thunder of the guns, a watching of the shells falling and spouting earth and smoke on the defiant redoubt.

"Reinforcements and another butt-in at it, I expect," surmised Kentucky. "Don't see anything else for it. Looks like this pimple-on-the-map of a redoubt was holdin' up any advance on this front. Anyhow I'm not hankering to go pushin' on with that redoubt bunch shootin' holes in my back, which they'd surely do."

"Wot's all the buzz about be'ind us?" said Pug suddenly, raising himself for a quick look over the covering edge of earth behind him, and in the act of dropping again stopped and stared with raised eyebrows and gaping mouth.

"What is it?" said Kentucky quickly, and also rose, and also stayed risen and staring in amazement. Towards them, lumbering and rolling, dipping heavily into the shell holes, heaving clumsily out of them, moving with a motion something between that of a half-sunken ship and a hamstrung toad, striped and banded and splashed from head to foot, or, if you prefer, from fo'c'sl-head to cutwater, with splashes of lurid color, came His Majesty's Land Ship "Here We Are."

"Gor-strewth!" ejaculated Pug. "Wha-what is it?"

Kentucky only gasped.

"'Ere," said Pug hurriedly, "let's gerrout o' this. It's comin' over atop of us," and he commenced to scramble clear.

But a light of understanding was dawning on Kentucky's face and a wide grin growing on his lips. "It's one of the Tanks," he said, and giggled aloud as the Here We Are dipped her nose and slid head first into a huge shell-crater in ludicrous likeness to a squat bull-pup sitting back on its haunches and dragged into a hole: "I've heard lots about 'em, but the seein' beats all the hearin' by whole streets," and he and Pug laughed aloud together as the Here We Are's face and gun-port eyes and bent-elbow driving gear appeared above the crater rim in still more ridiculous resemblance to an amazed toad emerging from a rain-barrel. The creature lumbered past them, taking in its stride the narrow trench dug to link up the shell holes, and the laughter on Kentucky's lips died to thoughtfully serious lines as his eye caught the glint of fat, vicious-looking gun muzzles peering from their ports.

"Haw haw haw," guffawed Pug as the monster lurched drunkenly, checked and steadied itself with one foot poised over a deep hole, halted and backed away, and edged nervously round the rim of the hole. "See them machine guns pokin' out, Kentucky," he continued delightedly. "They won't 'arf pepper them Huns when they gets near enough."

Fifty yards in the wake of the Here We Are a line of men followed up until an officer halted them along the front line where Pug and Kentucky were posted.

"You blokes just takin' 'im out for an airin'?" Pug asked one of the newcomers. "Oughtn't you to 'ave 'im on a leadin' string?"

"Here we are, Here we are again," chanted the other and giggled spasmodically. "An' ain't he just hot stuff! But wait till you see 'im get to work with his sprinklers."

"Does 'e bite?" asked Pug, grinning joyously. "Oughtn't you to 'ave 'is muzzle on?"

"Bite," retorted another. "He's a bloomin' Hun-eater. Jes' gulps 'em whole, coal-scuttle 'ats an' all."

"He's a taed," said another. "A lollopin, flat-nosed, splay-fittit, ugly puddock, wi's hin' legs stuck oot whaur his front should be."

"Look at 'im, oh, look at 'im ... he's alive, lad, nobbut alive."... "Does every bloomin' thing but talk."... "Skatin' he is now, skatin' on 'is off hind leg," came a chorus of delighted comment.

"Is he goin' to waltz in and take that redoubt on his ownsum?" asked Kentucky. "No," some one told him. "We give him ten minutes' start and then follow on and pick up the pieces, and the prisoners."

III—HOW THE "TOMMIES" CHEERED THE "PEPPER POTS"—TANK TALES

They lay there laughing and joking and watching the uncouth antics of the monster waddling across the shell-riddled ground, cheering when it appeared to trip and recover itself, cheering when it floundered sideways into a hole and crawled out again, cheering most wildly of all when it reached the barbed-wire entanglements, waddled through, bursting them apart and trailing them in long tangles behind it, or trampling them calmly under its churning caterpillar-wheel-bands. It was little wonder they cheered and less wonder they laughed. The Here We Are's motions were so weirdly alive and life-like, so playfully ponderous, so massively ridiculous, that it belonged by nature to nothing outside a Drury Lane Panto. At one moment it looked exactly like a squat tug-boat in a heavy cross sea or an ugly tide-rip, lurching, dipping, rolling rail and rail, plunging wildly bows under, tossing its nose up and squattering again stern-rail deep, pitching and heaving and diving and staggering, but always pushing forward. Next minute it was a monster out of Prehistoric Peeps, or a new patent fire-breathing dragon from the pages of a very Grimm Fairy Tale, nosing its way blindly over the Fairy Prince's pitfalls; next it was a big broad-buttocked sow nuzzling and rooting as it went; next it was a drunk man reeling and staggering, rolling and falling, scrabbling and crawling; next it was—was anything on or in, or underneath the earth, anything at all except a deadly, grim, purposeful murdering product of modern war.

The infantry pushed out after it when it reached the barbed wire, and although they took little heed to keep cover—being much more concerned not to miss any of the grave and comic antics of their giant joke than to shelter from flying bullets—the line went on almost without casualties. "Mighty few bullets about this time," remarked Kentucky, who with Pug had moved out along with the others "to see the fun." "That's 'cos they're too busy with the old Pepper-pots, an' the Pepper-pots is too busy wi' them to leave much time for shootin' at us," said Pug gayly. It was true too. The Pepper-pots—a second one had lumbered into sight from the center of the horseshoe curve—were drawing a tearing hurricane of machine-gun bullets that beat and rattled on their armored sides like hail on a window-pane. They waddled indifferently through the storm and Here We Are, crawling carefully across a trench, halted half-way over and sprinkled bullets up and down its length to port and starboard for a minute, hitched itself over, steered straight for a fire-streaming machine-gun embrasure. It squirted a jet of lead into the loophole, walked on, butted at the emplacement once or twice, got a grip of it under the upward sloped caterpillar band, climbed jerkily till it stood reared up on end like a frightened colt, ground its driving bands round and round, and—fell forward on its face with a cloud of dust belching up and out from the collapsed dug-out. Then it crawled out of the wreckage, crunching over splintered beams and broken concrete, wheeled and cruised casually down the length of a crooked trench, halting every now and then to spray bullets on any German who showed or to hail a stream of them down the black entrance to a dug-out, straying aside to nose over any suspicious cranny, swinging round again to plod up the slope in search of more trenches.

The infantry followed up, cheering and laughing like children at a fair, rounding up batches of prisoners who crawled white-faced and with scared eyes from dug-out doors and trench corners, shouting jests and comments at the lumbering Pepper-pots.

A yell went up as the Here We Are, edging along a trench, lurched suddenly, staggered, side-slipped, and half disappeared in a fog of dust. The infantry raced up and found it with its starboard driving gear grinding and churning full power and speed of revolution above ground and the whole port side and gear down somewhere in the depths of the collapsed trench, grating and squealing and flinging out clods of earth as big as clothes-baskets. Then the engines eased, slowed, and stopped, and after a little and in answer to the encouraging yells of the men outside, a scuttle jerked open and a grimy figure crawled out.

"Blimey," said Pug rapturously, "'ere's Jonah 'isself. Ol' Pepper-pot's spewed 'im out."

IV—JONAH'S SHIP RECHRISTENED—"THE D.T.'S"

But "Jonah" addressed himself pointedly and at some length to the laughing spectators, and they, urged on by a stream of objurgation and invective, fell to work with trenching-tools, with spades retrieved from the trench, with bare hands and busy fingers, to break down the trench-side under Here We Are's starboard driver, and pile it down into the trench and under the uplifted end of her port one. The second Pepper-pot cruised up and brought to adjacent to the operations with a watchful eye on the horizon. It was well she did, for suddenly a crowd of Germans seeing or sensing that one of the monsters was out of action, swarmed out of cover on the crest and came storming down on the party. Here We Are could do nothing; but the sister ship could, and did, do quite a lot to those Germans. It sidled round so as to bring both bow guns and all its broadside to bear and let loose a close-quarter tornado of bullets that cut the attackers to rags. The men who had ceased digging to grab their rifles had not time to fire a shot before the affair was over and "Jonah" was again urging them to their spade-work. Then when he thought the way ready, Here We Are at his orders steamed ahead again, its lower port side scraping and jarring along the trench wall, the drivers biting and gripping at the soft ground. Jerkily, a foot at a time, it scuffled its way along the trench till it came to a sharp angle of it where a big shell hole had broken down the wall. But just as the starboard driver was reaching out over the shell hole and the easy job of plunging into it, gaining a level keel and climbing out the other side, the trench wall on the right gave way and the Here We Are sank its starboard side level to and then below the port one. She had fallen bodily into a German dug-out, but after a pause to regain its shaken breath—or the crew's—it began once more to revolve its drivers slowly, and to churn out behind them, first a cloud of dust and clots of earth, then, as the starboard driver bit deeper into the dug-out, a mangled débris of clothing and trench-made furniture. On the ground above the infantry stood shrieking with laughter, while the frantic skipper raved unheard-of oaths and the Here We Are pawed and hoofed behind, or caught on its driving band and hoisted in turn into the naked light of day, a splintered bedstead, a chewed-up blanket or two, separately and severally the legs, back, and seat of a red velvet armchair, a torn gray coat and a forlorn and muddy pair of pink pajama trousers tangled up in one officer's field boot. And when the drivers got their grip again and the Here We are rolled majestically forward and up the further sloping side of the shell-crater and halted to take the skipper aboard again, Pug dragged a long branch from the fascines in the trench débris, slid it up one leg and down the other of the pink pajamas, tied the boot by its laces to the tip and jammed the root into a convenient crevice in the Tank's stern. And so beflagged she rolled her triumphant way up over the captured redoubt and down the other side, with the boot-tip bobbing and swaying and jerking at the end of her pink tail. The sequel to her story may be told here, although it only came back to the men who decorated her after filtering round the firing line, up and down the communication lines, round half the hospitals and most of the messes at or behind the Front.

And many as came to be the Tales of the Tanks, this of the Pink-Tailed 'un, as Pug called her, belonged unmistakably to her and, being so, was joyfully recognized and acclaimed by her decorators. She came in due time across the redoubt, says the story, and bore down on the British line at the other extreme of the horseshoe to where a certain infantry C.O., famed in past days for a somewhat speedy and hectic career, glared in amazement at the apparition lurching and bobbing and bowing and crawling toad-like towards him.

"I knew," he is reported to have afterwards admitted, "I knew it couldn't be that I'd got 'em again. But in the old days I always had one infallible sign. Crimson rats and purple snakes I might get over; but if they had pink tails, I knew I was in for it certain. And I tell you it gave me quite a turn to see this blighter waddling up and wagging the old pink tail."

But this end of the story only came to the Stonewalls long enough after—just as it is said to have come in time to the ears of the Here We Are's skipper, and, mightily pleasing him and his crew, set him chuckling delightedly and swearing he meant to apply and in due and formal course obtain permission to change his land-ship's name, and having regretfully parted with the pink tail, immortalize it in the name of H.M.L.S. The D.T.'s.

A NOVELIST AND SOLDIER ON THE BATTLE LINE

Coningsby Dawson, the brilliant young novelist, was 31 years of age at the outbreak of the war. He was graduated with honors from Oxford in 1905 and came to the United States to take a theological course at Union Seminary. After a year at the Seminary, he reached the conclusion that his life work lay in literature. His family left England and established their home in Taunton, Massachusetts. Here, young Dawson began the career which is to place him in the front rank of modern novelists. At the outbreak of the Great War, he laid his pen aside and took up his sword for his native country. Enlisting with the gallant Canadians, he went to the front where he soon became a lieutenant. His letters home have been collected by his father and published in book form under the title "Carry On—Letters in War Time" by John Lane Company: Copyright 1917. These intimate letters written from dug-outs on the Somme battle fronts in the intervals of incessant artillery fire reveal the heart of the young man who embodies the elements of greatness. They breathe the very spirit of heroism. Several of the most inspirational of these letters are here reproduced.

[6] I—WITH 6,000 TROOPS AND A CONVOY

Dearest All:

So much has happened since last I saw you that it's difficult to know where to start. On Thursday, after lunch, I got the news that we were to entrain from Petewawa next Friday morning. I at once put in for leave to go to Ottawa the next day until the following Thursday at Reveille. We came here with a lot of the other officers who are going over and have been having a very full time.

I am sailing from a port unknown on board the Olympic with 6,000 troops—there is to be a big convoy. I feel more than ever I did—and I'm sure it's a feeling that you share since visiting the camp—that I am setting out on a Crusade from which it would have been impossible to withhold myself with honor. I go quite gladly and contentedly, and pray that in God's good time we may all sit again in the little shack at Kootenay and listen to the rustling of the orchard outside. It will be of those summer days that I shall be thinking all the time.

II—OFF FOR FRANCE—ACROSS THE CHANNEL

My Dearests:

I have just returned from sending you a cable to let you know that I'm off to France. The word came out in orders yesterday, and I shall leave before the end of the week with a draft of officers—I have been in England just a day over four weeks....

Selfishly I wish that you were here at this moment—actually I'm glad that you are away. Everybody goes out quite unemotionally and with very few good-byes—we made far more fuss in the old days about a week-end visit.

Now that at last it has come—this privileged moment for which I have worked and waited—my heart is very quiet. It's the test of a character which I have often doubted. I shall be glad not to have to doubt it again. Whatever happens, I know you will be glad to remember that at a great crisis I tried to play the man, however small my qualifications. We have always lived so near to one another's affections that this going out alone is more lonely to me than to most men. I have always had some one near at hand with love-blinded eyes to see my faults as springing from higher motives. Now I reach out my hands across six thousand miles and only touch yours with my imagination to say good-bye. What queer sights these eyes, which have been almost your eyes, will witness! If my hands do anything respectable, remember that it is your hands that are doing it. It is your influence as a family that has made me ready for the part I have to play, and where I go, you follow me.

Poor little circle of three loving persons, please be tremendously brave. Don't let anything turn you into cowards—we've all got to be worthy of each other's sacrifice; the greater the sacrifice may prove to be for the one the greater the nobility demanded of the remainder. How idle the words sound, and yet they will take deep meanings when time has given them graver sanctions. I think gallant is the word I've been trying to find—we must be gallant English women and gentlemen....

How far away the childish past seems—almost as though it never happened. And was I really the budding novelist in New York? Life has become so stern and scarlet—and so brave. From my window I look out on the English Channel, a cold, grey-green sea, with rain driving across it and a fleet of small craft taking shelter. Over there beyond the curtain of mist lies France—and everything that awaits me.

News has just come that I have to start. Will continue from France.