ing curve that is the French front.
Occasionally the line moves a trifle forward or back, like the
shifting record of a fever chart; but in general it remains the same.
It has remained the same since the first of November. A movement to
thrust it forward in any one place is followed by a counter-attack in
another place. The reserves must be drawn off and hurried to the
threatened spot. Automatically the line straightens again.

The little map is dated the twenty-third of February. All through the
spring and summer the line has remained unchanged. There will be no
change until one side or the other begins a great offensive movement.
After that it will be a matter of the irresistible force and the
immovable body, a question not of maps but of empires.

Between the confronting lines lies that tragic strip of No Man's Land,
which has been and is the scene of so much tragedy. No Man's Land is
of fixed length but of varying width. There are places where it is
very narrow, so narrow that it is possible to throw across a hand
grenade or a box of cigarettes, depending on the nearness of an
officer whose business is war. Again it is wide, so that friendly
relations are impossible, and sniping becomes a pleasure as well as an
art.

It was No Man's Land that I was to visit the night of the entry in my
journal.

From the neighbourhood of Ypres to the Swiss border No Man's Land
varies. The swamps and flat ground give way to more rolling country,
and this to hills. But in the north No Man's Land is a series of
shallow lakes, lying in flat, unprotected country.

For Belgium, in desperation, last October opened the sluices and let
in the sea. It crept in steadily, each high tide advancing the flood
farther. It followed the lines of canal and irrigation ditches mile
after mile till it had got as far south as Ypres, beyond Ypres indeed.
To the encroachment of the sea was added the flooding resulting from
an abnormally rainy winter. Ordinarily the ditches have carried off
the rain; now even where the inundation does not reach it lies in
great ponds. Belgium's fertile sugar-beet fields are under salt water.

The method was effectual, during the winter, at least, in retarding
the German advance. Their artillery destroyed the towns behind the
opposing trenches of the Allies, but their attempts to advance through
the flood failed.

Even where the floods were shallow--only two feet or so--they served
their purpose in masking the charac