IT’. midnight. We’re still in the copse. We believe we are to take part in a new attack tomorrow, but have received no orders as yet.

I am squatting on the ground beneath a low tent made of Hun great-coats and sacking pinned together. On one side of me, more than half filling the tiny space, the Major lies asleep; on the other is a shaded candle and the telephone which keeps us in touch with brigade. Every quarter of an hour the brigade-signallers buzz me to make sure that the line is holding up. Every now and then I draw the flimsy patch-work of the roof nearer together lest any light should be escaping. Ever since darkness settled, the Hun planes have been bombing our back areas, getting after our horse-lines, ammunition dumps and infantry concentrations. When one of them has scored a direct hit on a dump, all the country within the radius of half a mile is flooded with a pulsating wave of red. While it lasts, no movement remains hidden from the watchers in the sky; a man stands out as distinctly as a tower. In the welter of blackness the glow of a cigarette, a match struck however furtively, the leakage of light from a bivouac, show up as significantly as beacon-fires.

The human-eagles got after us in fine style two hours ago, coming so close that we had to ride our horses bare-back into the night, pursued from the air not only by bombs but also by machine-guns.

Now all our men who are not on duty are trying to snatch what rest they can before another disturbance starts. There always is another, and a next and a next. The Hun airmen, having exhausted their supply of bombs, have flown back to replenish. They’re due to return almost any minute and will do their best again to pick up our scent. If we don’t attack to-morrow, we can’t stay here, now that we have been spotted.

I’m appallingly sleepy and am scribbling chiefly in an effort to keep my eyes from closing. They feel as if they had been filled with dust; I have to wedge my lids up with my fingers to prevent them from falling. I can well understand how sentries drop off at their posts, despite the knowledge that they are committing a shooting offence. It’s strange to reflect that in civil life no money could have persuaded us to put up with one tithe of our discomforts, let alone with our dangers super-added. If we get back to a world of sheeted beds, all former necessities will seem forever luxuries.

Earlier in the evening I told the Major about Heming. He agreed with me that we must do our best to prevent him from learning about Mrs. Dragott. The Major was quite frank in the expression of his opinion. “There are some kinds of messes you ran live down,” he said; “the results of them may make you even stronger to face life. My kind of mess is a case in point. I go home on leave, expecting to marry my girl, and find that not only has she jilted me, but that she has the cheek to compel me to save her face by attending her wedding to another chap. Of course I had a lucky escape; if that was the sort she was, life with her would have been unbearable. At the same time the experience has crippled my belief in myself and, up to a point, my faith in women generally. I’m not particular whether I come out of the war—that’s the way I feel at present. But on one thing I am determined: I’ll prove to her before I die that she backed the wrong horse and was a rotten bad guesser. I’ll take every chance and try to win every decoration. When the war ends, if I’m still above ground, I’ll succeed all I can and collar a girl a thousand times more kind than she ever dreamt of being. So I suppose instead of smashing me, she’s really helped to make me. Now with Heming it’s quite different. He may not know it, but he’s still in love with his woman. By her method of refusing him, she made herself romantic to him. She pushed him from her when she confessed she was a spy; but at the same time she roused his pity and drew him to her. By no stretch of imagination can he ever win her, neither can he ever quite lose her. He’ll be lucky if he isn’t recalled to bear witness against her; if he is, he will smudge his own honour. And as for her, if she isn’t shot, she’ll certainly get penal servitude. The most fortunate thing that could happen to him is that he should fall in action. If we can help it, he must never hear of this tragedy. We’ve a month of hard fighting ahead of us. Many of us will go west before the days grow much shorter. I hope for his sake he’s one of them. I shan’t try to prevent his going.”

“And what about Suzette?” I asked.

He returned my question, “Well, and what about her?”

“We’ve no right to have her with us,” I said. “She might get killed.”

“And if she does,” the Major took me up, “that wouldn’t be the worst calamity that could befall her. Death’s not the final tragedy we used to think it; very often it’s the new start. Her life was probably gray enough before we found her—a peasant girl, who had been used by men and would probably be used by men to the end of the chapter. What kind of a career has she ahead of her if we throw her down now? There’s nothing but devastated country behind us. If I told her tomorrow that she’d got to buzz off, where would she go or who would care what happened? No, she’s going to stay with us; and if she comes through it all, we’ll make ourselves responsible for her and take her back with us to Canada. I tell you what it is, the more I see of that girl, the more grateful I am that she’s with us. She’s restored my ideal of women.——You think I’m talking like an ass, no doubt; but from Heming down, there’s not an unmarried man in the battery who’s not more or less in love with her. No, my boy, until we’ve been found out and have received direct orders to get rid of her, Suzette stops.”

“And Bully Beef?” I asked.

“And Bully Beef,” he answered. “He can always be left behind with the transport when we’re in action. Old Dan Turpin will look after him. He considers him his own kid already.”

I’ve been sitting here thinking over this conversation, and especially over one sentence, “Death’s not the final tragedy; very often it’s the new start.” Those words really explain our indifference in the face of shell-fire and torture. We no longer fear the separation of the spirit from the body. We don’t regard the reparation as extinction; we view it with quiet curiosity and suspect that it may only mean beginning afresh. Perhaps we’re exceptional in our battery, inasmuch as there are so many who would welcome the opportunity to begin afresh. Tubby certainly must be glad of it; going on the way he was, the noble part of him would never have had a chance. This war has made so many of us aware of a nobility which we never knew we possessed. We’re a little afraid that we shall lose it, if we live through to the corpulent days of peace. We would rather go west at the moment when we are acting up to our most decent standards. It’s odd, but when threatened by death, it’s the fear of life that assails us. The dread of old age grips us by the throat; the terror of old temptations, which of late we have been too athletic in soul to gratify, confronts us. The gray, unheroic monotony of unmerited failures and unworthy successes daunts us. We dread lest when war ends, the old grasping selfishnesses may re-assert themselves. To-day we have the opportunity to go out like vikings, perishing in a storm. To live a few years longer only to shuffle off, will not be rewarding.

At this point I have to leave off. A runner has just come in bringing us word that we are to be prepared to push forward at dawn.