later, when I shall be gone"-so runs your almost subconscious thought. You feel under obligation to your editor to miss no red event. But the kindly smiles, the good-humored faces, the expression of physical contentment which comes of being well fed and cared for! Once more your mental processes about-face from the clamor of hostilities toward this new view-point. You forget the dramatic phase and go to wondering about these brawny, cheerful-looking soldiers. And what astonishing education you fall in conversation later on in an hour of leisure with one about Chamberlin's books. He speaks English perfectly. Before leaving by a zigzag exit, exactly like your approach, you note and carefully examine little chambers or dens dug in the earth of the trench's wall, always on the side toward the enemy. They are perhaps seven feet long, four feet wide, three feet deep, the roof and sides kept from caving in by wooden supports. The cold, hard earthen floor is softened and warmed by thick layers of clean dry straw; a flap of canvas or gunnysack shields the entrance from daylight and the chilly air. Into one after another of these firing-line bedchambers you peer, and in every one a soldier is fast asleep, fully clad, even to boots, overcoat and cap. You have not intruded, for nothing so trivial as the poking about of a civilian investigator awakens these war sleepers. Thus you learn part of the routine of these particular trenches-twenty-four hours in these Schutzengraben, two hours watching and firing, four hours sleeping in the cubby-holes; then two hours of duty on foot again, and so on; then forty-eight hours of rest in buildings, if any are near by, or, if not, in the equally comfortable, big, semi-underground, roomy bunk places; then three days of real rest a little farther back, but still within quick call; then three more days in some comparatively distant yet neighboring village still farther in the rear, where the soldier alternates between enjoying himself and plowing the fields if the French peasants are not already performing that task. And then back to the trenches again, and the same routine of service and repose. This routine is not uniform-it varies with different armies, even with various divisions. And here is a problem for the psychologist burrowing his mole-like way into the hidden causes of human action and preference—the men are anxious to get back from the safety and comfort of village life or cozy subterranean comradeship to the danger and discomfort of the fighting pit. You do not in the least understand this soldier choice, but you feel it vaguely yourself long before you are told it. For, lunching an hour later, some miles away, with the general commanding that corps and his staff, in a big attractive house in perfect safety amid engaging companionship, you are ashamed to find that you are not as appreciative as courtesy demands and justifies. You wish you were back there in the rain and mud, the impolite snap of rifles in your ears, bitten by the tang of the unusual and perilous. Can it be that war has its ultimate roots in the far depths of human nature? Can it be man's blind method of relief from soul-rotting, spirit-quenching monotony? Can it be that the fuse which explodes the destroying shell also tears apart those gold and silken meshes with which convention and the ordinary wrap, mummylike, the intellect and aspirations of man? Can it be— hideous and forbidding thought!-that the ages have found no better way than this of stirring the waters of the soul from the stagnation of routine? You would make acquaintance with the great guns whose booming voice is never still, seems never weary; you would listen more closely to the argument of the artillery and here luck favors you. It so happens that an officer, with American relationships, has charge of a wide round of inspection as the direct representative of the commander-in-chief of the army. You had met him at dinner and found him attractive, quiet, informed, cordial. "Come along with me if you like. I shall be glad to have you," says this major-adjutant. "I should like it very much, but won't my being with you interfere with your duties?" "Not in the least," he replies, "and you really may happen to see something." You find that a painter of German battle scenes, who is in high favor with the German army, men and officers alike, also is going. He speaks English perfectly, which adds to your momentary and accidental good fortune. So away plunges the great military auto over the perfect roads of France toward the sound of the cannonade, which grows louder and clearer with every turn of the flying wheels. A square white tower, like an ancient castle with a quaint French village clustered about it, rises from among the trees. "We are using that as our observation point-we shall be able to see the whole field from there," explains the officer. The few inhabitants of the village are walking about quite unconcernedly, attending to their daily tasks, the thunder of the guns long since a twice-told tale to them and now a part of their ordinary life. Many German soldiers are in the streets-again you note their healthful appearance and the good humor of their faces. An elderly French peasant walks by, lifting his cap to the German officers, who return his greeting with civility. A French woman stands in a doorway, holding in her arms a laughing child. Now you go on to the tower and find yourself on its flat, railed-in roof, where a glass of the highest power, mounted on a tripod, sweeps the whole country and brings the far distance almost beneath your feet. Through these lenses a town which you can see with your naked eye appears to be within a five minutes' saunter from where you stand-you can make out the details of a ruined brick house standing at the town's edge. In the distance, to the right, white cathedral spires rise like a beautiful unreality. The edifice is being shelled because the French are using it for observation purposes, precisely as the Germans are employing the tower on which you stand. This latter, however, is of no artistic value or historic interest, and has no sacred uses. You wonder why the French do not shell it, for it is in possible range of their heaviest |