t once. Their
silence and the eternal vigilance which they reveal are most
impressive. On the quietest night, with only an occasional shot being
fired, the horizon is ringed with them.

And on the horizon they are beautiful. Overhead they are distinctly
unpleasant.

"They are very uncomfortable," I said to Captain F----. "The Germans
can see us plainly, can't they?"

"But that is what they are for," he explained. "All movements of
troops and ammunition trains to and from the trenches are made during
the night, so they watch us very carefully."

"How near are we to the trenches?" I asked.

"Very near, indeed."

"To the first line?"

For I had heard that there were other lines behind, and with the
cessation of the rain my courage was rising. Nothing less than the
first line was to satisfy me.

"To the first line," he said, and smiled.

The wind which had driven the rain in sheets against the car had blown
the storm away. The moon came out, a full moon. From the car I could
see here and there the gleam of the inundation. The road was
increasingly bad, with shell holes everywhere. Buildings loomed out of
the night, roofless and destroyed. The _fusees_ rose and burst
silently overhead; the entire horizon seemed encircled with them. We
were so close to the German lines that we could see an electric signal
sending its message of long and short flashes, could even see the
reply. It seemed to me most unmilitary.

"Any one who knew telegraphy and German could read that message," I
protested.

"It is not so simple as that. It is a cipher code, and is probably
changed daily."

Nevertheless, the officers in the car watched the signalling closely,
and turning, surveyed the country behind us. In so flat a region, with
trees and shrubbery cut down and houses razed, even a pocket flash can
send a signal to the lines of the enemy. And such signals are sent.
The German spy system is thorough and far-reaching.

I have gone through Flanders near the lines at various times at night.
It is a dead country apparently. There are destroyed houses, sodden
fields, ditches lipful of water. But in the most amazing fashion
lights spring up and disappear. Follow one of these lights and you
find nothing but a deserted farm, or a ruined barn, or perhaps nothing
but a field of sugar beets dying in the ground.

Who are these spies? Are they Belgians and French, driven by the ruin
of everything they possess to selling out to the enemy? I