ter of the land. From a wading
depth of two feet, charging soldiers stepped frequently into a deep
ditch and drowned ignominiously.

It is a noble thing, war! It is good for a country. It unites its
people and develops national spirit!

Great poems have been written about charges. Will there ever be any
great poems about these men who have been drowned in ditches? Or about
the soldiers who have been caught in the barbed wire with which these
inland lakes are filled? Or about the wounded who fall helpless into
the flood?

The inland lakes that ripple under the wind from the sea, or gleam
silver in the light of the moon, are beautiful, hideous, filled with
bodies that rise and float, face down. And yet here and there the
situation is not without a sort of grim humour. Brilliant engineers on
one side or the other are experimenting with the flood. Occasionally
trenches hitherto dry and fairly comfortable find themselves
unexpectedly filling with water, as the other side devises some clever
scheme for turning the flood from a menace into a military asset.

In No Man's Land are the outposts.

The fighting of the winter has mystified many noncombatants, with its
advances and retreats, which have yet resulted in no definite change
of the line. In many instances this sharp fighting has been a matter
of outposts, generally farms, churches or other isolated buildings,
sometimes even tiny villages. In the inundated portion of Belgium
these outposts are buildings which, situated on rather higher land, a
foot or two above the flood, have become islands. Much of the fighting
in the north has been about these island outposts. Under the
conditions, charges must be made by relatively small bodies of men.
The outposts can similarly house but few troops.

They are generally defended by barbed wire and a few quick-firing
guns. Their purpose is strategical; they are vantage points from which
the enemy may be closely watched. They change sides frequently; are
won and lost, and won again.

Here and there the side at the time in command of the outpost builds
out from its trenches through the flood a pathway of bags of earth,
topped by fascines or bundles of fagots tied together. Such a path
pays a tribute of many lives for every yard of advance. It is built
under fire; it remains under fire. It is destroyed and reconstructed.

When I reached the front the British, Belgian and French troops in the
north had been fighting under these co