flood.

"We are within about sixty yards of the Germans," said Captain P------
at length, after we had gone in and out of the traverses and left the
braziers well behind.

Between the spotty, whitish wall of German sandbags, quite distinct in
the moonlight, and our parapet were two mounds of sandbags about
twenty feet apart. Snug behind one was a German and behind the
other an Irishman, both listening. They were within easy bombing
range, but the homicidal advantage of position of either resulted in a
truce. Sixty yards! Pace it off. It is not far. In other places the enemies
have been as close as five yards--only a wall of earth between them.
Where a bombing operation ends in an attack, a German is naturally
on one side of a traverse and a Briton on the other.

The Germans were as busy as beavers dam-building. They had a lot
of work to do before they had their new defences right. We heard
them driving stakes and spading; we heard their voices with snatches
of sentences intelligible, and occasionally the energetic, shouted,
guttural commands of their officers. All through that night I never
heard a British officer speak above a conversational tone. The orders
were definite enough, but given with a certain companionable
kindliness. I have spoken of the genuine affection which his men
showed for Captain P------, and I was beginning to appreciate that it
was not a particular instance.

"What if you should shout at Tommy in the German fashion?" I
asked.

"He wouldn't have it; he'd get rebellious," was the reply. "No, you
mustn't yell at Tommy. He's a little temperamental about some things
and he will not be treated as if he were just a human machine."

Yet no one will question the discipline of the British soldier. Discipline
means that the officer knows his men, and British discipline, which
bears a retreat like that from Mons, requires that the man likes to
follow his officers, believes in his officers, loves his officers. Each
army and each people to its own ways.

Sixty yards! And the dead between the trenches and death lurking
ready at a trigger's pull should life show itself! When daylight comes
the British sing out their "Good-morning, Germans!" and the Germans
answer, "Good-morning, British!" without adding, "We hope to kill
some of you to-day!" Ragging banter and jest and worse than jest
and grim defiance are exchanged between the trenches when they
are within such easy hearing distance of each other; but