A Visit to Three Fronts, June 1916 | Page 6

swift terriers after a cat.
They shot rat-tat-tatting across the sky until we lost sight of them in the
heat haze over the German line.
* * * * *
The afternoon saw us on the Sharpenburg, from which many a million
will gaze in days to come, for from no other point can so much be seen.
It is a spot forbid, but a special permit took us up, and the sentry on
duty, having satisfied himself of our bona fides, proceeded to tell us
tales of the war in a pure Hull dialect which might have been Chinese
for all that I could understand. That he was a 'terrier' and had nine
children were the only facts I could lay hold of. But I wished to be
silent and to think--even, perhaps, to pray. Here, just below my feet,
were the spots which our dear lads, three of them my own kith, have
sanctified with their blood. Here, fighting for the freedom of the world,
they cheerily gave their all. On that sloping meadow to the left of the
row of houses on the opposite ridge the London Scottish fought to the
death on that grim November morning when the Bavarians reeled back
from their shot-torn line. That plain away on the other side of Ypres
was the place where the three grand Canadian brigades, first of all men,
stood up to the damnable cowardly gases of the Hun. Down yonder is
Hill 60, that blood-soaked kopje. The ridge over the fields was held by
the cavalry against two army corps, and there where the sun strikes the
red roof among the trees I can just see Gheluveld, a name for ever to be
associated with Haig and the most vital battle of the war. As I turn
away I am faced by my Hull Territorial, who still says

incomprehensible things. I look at him with other eyes. He has fought
on yonder plain. He has slain Huns, and he has nine children. Could
any one better epitomise the duties of a good citizen? I could have
found it in my heart to salute him had I not known that it would have
shocked him and made him unhappy.
It has been a full day, and the next is even fuller, for it is my privilege
to lunch at Headquarters, and to make the acquaintance of the
Commander-in-chief and of his staff. It would be an invasion of private
hospitality if I were to give the public the impressions which I carried
from that charming château. I am the more sorry, since they were very
vivid and strong. This much I will say--and any man who is a face
reader will not need to have it said--that if the Army stands still it is not
by the will of its commander. There will, I swear, be no happier man in
Europe when the day has come and the hour. It is human to err, but
never possibly can some types err by being backward. We have a
superb army in France. It needs the right leader to handle it. I came
away happier and more confident than ever as to the future.
Extraordinary are the contrasts of war. Within three hours of leaving
the quiet atmosphere of the Headquarters Château I was present at what
in any other war would have been looked upon as a brisk engagement.
As it was it would certainly figure in one of our desiccated reports as an
activity of the artillery. The noise as we struck the line at this new point
showed that the matter was serious, and, indeed, we had chosen the
spot because it had been the storm centre of the last week. The method
of approach chosen by our experienced guide was in itself a tribute to
the gravity of the affair. As one comes from the settled order of
Flanders into the actual scene of war, the first sign of it is one of the
stationary, sausage-shaped balloons, a chain of which marks the ring in
which the great wrestlers are locked. We pass under this, ascend a hill,
and find ourselves in a garden where for a year no feet save those of
wanderers like ourselves have stood. There is a wild, confused
luxuriance of growth more beautiful to my eye than anything which the
care of man can produce. One old shell-hole of vast diameter has filled
itself with forget-me-nots, and appears as a graceful basin of light blue
flowers, held up as an atonement to heaven for the brutalities of man.

Through the tangled bushes we creep, then across a yard--'Please stoop
and run as you pass this point'--and finally to a small opening in a wall,
whence the battle lies not so much before as