WE march, and sleep, and work as in a dream. Nothing that we do or see seems any longer real to us. This inverted way of living by night and drowsing by day, blunts one’s sense of actuality as with a drug. The only fact which remains constant is our ceaseless struggle against weariness.

There’s no longer the faintest doubt as to where we are going; we’re marching into the great shove, to which all the previous four years of war have been a preface. We’re marching, if human endurance can carry us, straight into the heart of Germany. Among ourselves we make no more attempts to disguise what is intended; as though the doors of a furnace had been suddenly flung wide, we feel the heat of the trial which will consume us. To-day is the fourth of August; we hope to be in Berlin by Christmas—some, but not all of us.

One looks curiously into the faces of his companions, half expecting to find their fates written on their foreheads. In so doing, he is not morbid: he simply braces himself to meet the facts of things which must surely happen. He knows that many of those who jest with him to-day, will lie endlessly asleep to-morrow. He wonders vaguely to which company he himself will belong—whether to the company of those who sleep or the company of those who go toiling forward. It seems as though those who are to fall in the battle must have been already selected; they must have been assigned some mark by which they may be detected. So one watches his comrades stealthily to discover the invisible tag which records their lot.

I find myself speaking to my men more as a friend and less as an officer; the thought of that last night-march, which all men must make solitarily, is drawing us together in a closer bond. A voice is continually whispering, “It may be the last time you can be decent to that chap—the last time.”

I notice the counterpart of my own feeling in the attitude of the drivers towards their horses. They, too, realise that for many of us, whether human or four-footed, the hour of parting is approaching fast When stables are ended and the hungry crowd is dashing for the cook-house in a greedy endeavour to collar the biggest portions, the drivers turn back to their teams to give Chum and Blighty an extra pat and to shake the hay a little loose for them. The horses sniff against the men’s shoulders and arch their necks to gaze after them with a mild wonder in their eyes.

In what part of the line lies the furnace into which they mean to hurl us? Some say that we are going to join up with the French—others that the Americans will be behind us and will leap-frog us when we have crumpled up the Hun Front by our attack. There are many wild rumours, the most likely of which is that the neighbourhood of Rheims will be our jumping-off point. But to get us there they will have to entrain us; there are no signs of entraining at present. Nothing is certain, except that every night we are crawling southwards.

Are we brave or merely indifferent? The Army crushes imagination and sentiment. To attain a certain object lives have to be expended—the mere lives in proportion to the worth of the object. For those who plan the game at General Headquarters death and courage are an impersonal sum in mathematics: so many men and horses in the held, of whom so many can be spared for corpses, But the sum is not impersonal for us. It consists of an infinite number of intimate computations: the little sums of what life means to us and of what our lives mean to the old men, mothers, wives, sweethearts who scan the casualty lists feverishly, hoping not to read our names among the fallen. General Headquarters cannot be expected to complicate their book-keeping by taking these bijou exercises in addition and subtraction into their immenser calculations.

For us, in its most heroic analysis, the arithmetic of war is an auditing of our characters—an impartial balancing of the selfish and the noble, the cowardly and courageous in our natures. Long ago when we first enlisted, before we had any knowledge of the horrors we were to suffer, we set ourselves on record as believing that there were principles of right and wrong at stake, in the defence of which it was worth our while to die. An offensive of this magnitude is the test as to whether, with an experienced knowledge of the horrors, we are still men enough to hold to our bargain and prove our sincerity with our blood. It is the test of scarlet—the fiercest of all tests, which we encounter as heroes or avoid as moral bankrupts.

Yesterday, when the battery got drunk, there can be little doubt as to why it was done: the suspense of a Judgment Day for which no place or time had been allotted, made men afraid. Standish symbolizes that, terror. He could struggle with a fear which was present and which he could defeat with his hands, as he proved at Willerval; the fear, the coming of which was indefinite and the shadow of which groped only in his mind, crushed him. Perhaps the rest of us avoided his fate because we were of a coarser type. Maybe it was the very fineness of his mental qualities that tripped him up. Whatever the difference, the fact remains that he failed in the test of scarlet; at the very moment when his comrades, equally weary, equally afraid, equally in love with life, were marching out to throttle the danger, he, poor lad, was dangling from a rafter, shameful and unsightly, a self-confessed quitter and pain-dodger. Why should a man do a thing like that? He rushed upon the certainty of death, when by living he would still have retained his chance of life. All through the war such incident have happened, self-maimings, suicides, desertions—all manners of make-shift means of escaping the Judgment Day of the attack. But death is not to be avoided by running away from it; those who flee from it in the Front-line find it waiting for them behind the lines at their comrades’ hands. “I couldn’t face the Huns.” one deserter said with a kind of self-wonder, as he squared his shoulders bravely to meet the impact of the firing-squad, “but I can face this.” To my way of thinking it requires more courage to put a rope round your neck and fling yourself down from the rafters of a foul stable, or to hold yourself erect in the early dawn with your eyes blind-folded, writing without whimpering for British bullets to strike you. There must be different kinds of courage, some of which war can employ and others——Cowardice gives one the courage of desperation, so that one can calmly perform the most terrible of acts. I suppose the explanation of such men as Standish is that terror, too long contemplated, drives them mad. How much longer can the rest of us stand its contemplation?

Last night’s march was like a night of delirium with moments of consciousness; the moments of consciousness were the worst. We had scarcely struck the road before men started to fall asleep in their saddles. When orders to halt or to pull over to the right were passed down the column, they were not complied with. At first the horses saved us from tangles, for they heard the orders and without guiding, carried them out. But then the horses commenced to sleep as they walked, adding to our danger the risk that they might stumble. The entire battery was worn out and it was difficult to know on whom you could depend. We officers rode up and down, rousing the men and trying to keep the sergeants and corporals on the alert; but they, too, in many cases were no better and wandered nodding in their saddles. Soon after the last of the sunset had faded the night had become intensely dark; it was scarcely possible to see your hand before your face. Rain began to descend. The temperature sank and, after the heat of the August day, it became as cold as November.

Orders were passed back that every gunner and employed man had to walk that the vehicles might be lightened. Some of them had sore feet from the previous night’s march; many of them were still groggy from their excesses. It required extraordinary vigilance to be sure that no one was falling behind and getting lost. We shuffled along under dripping trees in sullen silence. Very often our route lay by by-roads, that the traffic might be relieved on main thoroughfares. The by-roads were soggy and loose in their surface; branches and brambles slashed across our faces, leaping out on us from the dark.

Everything was on the move, tanks, heavies, siege-guns, transport. They were pushing south, all pouring in the same direction, and no one seemed to care whom he thrust aside so long as he himself got there. For long periods we were held up by lorries and caterpillars which had become ditched ahead of us. It seemed as though we could never reach our camping place before sunrise. Our strict orders were to be off the road and hidden before daylight. The men who had made themselves dead drunk before we started had the best of it; lashed to their gun-seats, they slept on blissfully unconscious of the rain and cold. From midnight till dawn was the worst period; one’s eyes were so heavy that it was an agony to keep them from closing. It became necessary to dismount and to lead one’s horse to prevent oneself from drowsing. This remedy only brought new complications, for it was impossible to superintend one’s section while on foot; mounted men in front who slept, kept colliding with the teams and vehicles. Every one was cross, and strafing, and unjust by the time the day began to whiten. It had seemed that the sun had set for good; now that it had risen, we felt ashamed of our appearance. We were muddy and sodden; our one desire was to find a place where we could lie down and rest.

When we had limped into the field in which we are at present bivouacked, we found that only two teams could be watered at one time at the ford. This meant that grooming had to be prolonged until the last horse in the battery had been watered. By the time stables had been dismissed, the men were so tired that they did not care for breakfast, but tumbled off to sleep where they dropped.

Today I am orderly-dog, on duty for twenty-four hours from reveille to reveille. I sit here among the bales of hay which have been thrown down from the G. S. wagons, and I watch—and I marvel, as I never cease to marvel, at the men’s indomitable pluck. Now that they know what lies ahead of them, their behaviour is completely nonchalant and ordinary. They have accepted the idea of catastrophe and have dismissed it from their minds. If they refer to it at all, it is merely as material out of which to manufacture jokes against themselves.

Last night’s march, with its cold and wet, being over is forgotten. More night-marches lie before them which may be worse than the last, but they cross no bridges until they come to them. For the moment the sun shines luxuriously and their fatigue is gone. Some of them are practising pitching with a base-ball; others are washing and cooling their swollen feet in the ford. The gramophone, which we always carry with us, is playing popular selections from the latest thing in musical comedy. It’s a point of honour with every officer in our mess when he goes on leave to bring back at least half-a-dozen new records. The tunes bring pleasant memories of girls and taxis and dinner-parties and dances, of crowded theatres jammed with cheering khaki, of uproarious laughter, of sirens blowing and bombs falling on London house-tops—the memories still are pleasant—and of late adventurous home-comings along unlighted thoroughfares to sheeted beds. All of which memories are in rosy contrast to the stern laboriousness of our present. Afar off I can see Bully Beef, toddling on chubby legs along the edge of the wood gathering wild-flowers. That slim young soldier, who follows him with her eyes between intervals of mending a tunic, must be Suzette. The scene is extraordinarily restful. We might be planning to live forever. Wherever the eye rests the prevailing note is sanity and calm. And yet our calmness is only an outward pretence; it means nothing more than this, that we are in hiding from the spies of the enemy. The woods which surround us were selected that no one might know that Foch’s Pets are on the march. A further emphasis was laid on the magnitude of the ordeal which awaits us by an order regarding men under arrest, which we received this morning; they are to be released and the charges against them dropped, that they may be available for cannon-fodder. This is no act of mercy; it simply means that every last man will be needed for the replacing of casualties.

The true attitude of the fighting-man towards this concert-pitch commotion was expressed by the Major, when he sat up in his sleeping-sack and rubbed his eyes at lunch-time. He looked an absurdly rebellious little figure in his khaki shirt-tails and without a tie or collar. “I tell you what it is; I’m fed up with all this secrecy and nonsense. I don’t wonder that the chaps got drunk; when you’re unconscious is the only time that you possess yourself. I don’t mind the fighting; what I object to is this being mucked about by everybody. I’m not a Major; I’m a policeman. And the Colonels and Generals who boss me, they’re bigger policemen. In the Army everyone who is not a Tommy is a policeman, with a stronger policeman above him to boss him. We interfere with one another to such an extent that we’re disciplined out of our initiative and self-confidence. I’m sick of it all; I’m off.”

He then explained in detail what it was he was sick of. He was sick of army-rations; sick of night-marches; sick of the paper-warfare which blew in from Headquarters every hour of the day demanding answers; sick of having to strafe his men and being strafed in his turn by the Colonel. He wanted to get away to where he didn’t have to blow his nose in accordance with King’s Regulations, where he didn’t have to eat what a Government had provided for him, where he didn’t have to do everything in the dread of a calling down from higher authorities.

“You’re orderly-dog for today,” he said. “You can carry on. If you have to pull out, leave a mounted man behind to guide me on. I’m going to find a place where the food tastes different; if I find more than I want. I’ll bring you back a portion. I’m going to take Captain Heming with me; the rest of the officers can wander about, so long as they get back by six o’clock and there are always two within call in the event of a movement order.”

The rest of the officers are Tubby Grain, the centre section commander, Gus Edwine, the commander of the left section, Sam Bradley, who is in charge of the signallers, and Steve Hoadley, who is attached as spare-officer. Of them all I like Tubby best. He’s fat, and brave, and humourous. He used to mix soft-drinks in a druggist’s store, and started his career at the Front as a sergeant. He has a weakness for referring to himself as a “temporary gent” and, if he weren’t so lazy, would make a cracking fine officer. He’s as scrupulously honourable with men as he is unreliable with women. In his pocket-book he carries a cheap photograph signed, “Yours lovingly, Gertie.” He shows it to you sentimentally as “the picture of my girl,” yet the next moment will recite all manner of escapades.

His most permanent affair since he came to France is with an estaminet-keeper’s daughter at Bruay. Out of the sale of intoxicants to British Tommies she has collected as her percentage a dot of fifty thousand francs—an immense sum to her. With this, when the war has been won and they are married, she proposes to buy a small hotel. Tubby is non-committal when she mentions marriage. I don’t know how serious his intentions are, and I don’t believe he knows himself. He gives her no definite answers, but writes her scores of letters. He gambles heavily and always loses; but whatever his losses, he’s invariably cheery and willing to lend money. One has to take his companions as he finds them at the Front; it’s the kindness of Tubby’s heart that recommends him.

Gus Edwine is of an entirely different stamp. He’s conscientious, unmerry, and solid. He never plays cards, is poor company, but knows his work.

He has a girl who’s a nursing-sister at a Casualty Clearing Station. He takes his love with sad seriousness, and beats his way to her by stealing lifts on Army lorries whenever we’re within thirty miles of her hospital. I have my suspicions that that’s where he’s gone at present. He never tells. In a stiff fight he’s a man to be relied on, and commands everyone’s respect on account of his high morals and cool courage.

Sam Bradley is the only married officer in our battery. I don’t think he can have been married long, for he smiles all the while quietly to himself as though he had a happy secret. Wherever we are, in a muddy dug-out or back at rest, the first piece of his possessions to be unpacked is a leather-framed portrait of a kind-looking girl. Much of his leisure is spent in writing letters, and most of his mail is in a round decided handwriting which we take to be hers.

Steve Hoadley is new to the war. He has never been in any important action and has yet to prove himself. He has a manner, which irritates the Major, of “knowing it all,” and is frequently in trouble. The men rather resent taking orders from him, since many of them have seen three years of active service. On the whole he does not have a happy lot. None of us have at first. He would get on all right if he wasn’t so positive. I think he’s made up his mind to seize this offensive to show his worth. Here’s good luck to him in his effort.

Dan Turpin, the Quartermaster—good old Dan with his large heart and immense sympathy for everybody—has just been to see me. He looked troubled as he halted in front of me, rubbing the wart on his nose thoughtfully.

“What is it, Quarter?” I asked. “Anything the matter with the transport? If it’s a long story, you’d better take a pew while you tell me.”

“It’s nothing to do with the transport, sir,” he said, and remained standing. “It’s to do with what Suzette’s doing over there.”

“What is she doing?” I glanced lazily over the sunlit distance in her direction. “She’s mending something, isn’t she?”

Dan shook his head. Then, in order to give me another chance to guess, he added, “And it’s got to do with what Bully Beef’s doing.”

“He’s gathering wild-flowers.”

“Yes, He’s gathering wild-flowers,” Dan said. “But she ain’t mending anything; she’s putting something together.”

I unslung my glasses and focussed them to get a closer view. “Ah, I see what she’s up to now. She’s made a kind of pillow out of a piece of horse-blanket and she’s stuffing it with leaves.”

“It’s a pillow for his head,” Dan said solemnly, “and the flowers is to cover him, before we throw the earth on.”

Then I knew what Dan wanted and, rising to my feet, accompanied him without further words. In the wood, which surrounds our camp, we have just buried Standish, with Suzette’s pillow beneath his head and Bully Beef’s wild-flowers for a covering. On account of the way he died, there was no parade of the battery to do him honour: but many of the men attended. Trottrot was there, whom everyone regards as untrustworthy under shell-fire. He was one of those who lowered the body, bruised by its last night’s march on the gun-seat, into its narrow bed. While the short ceremony was in progress, the sound of the gramophone was stopped and the shouts of the base-ball pitchers died into silence. As we were seen to emerge from the wood, with scarcely a moment’s delay, the sounds started up—not in callousness, but in a frenzied effort to forget. It was fully an hour after I had again seated myself among the bales of hay that I saw Suzette and Trottrot come back. I could guess what they had been doing—making the place beautiful. But why should Trottrot do that? He had not been the dead man’s friend. Was it because he himself had come so near to cowardice that he could stoop to be tender?

I shall have no time to see what they have done to mark the grave, for a runner has just brought a movement order from Brigade that we are to be prepared to march by sun-down. It doesn’t give us much of a margin, for the smoke-gray haze of evening is already creeping through the tree-tops. The Major and Heming have not yet retuned.