when we returned into Ladysmith half the
correspondents seemed to be under the impression that the day had been
quite a successful one; while, on the other hand, one had headed his
despatch with the words, "Dies Irae, dies illa!" To get to the heart of
things; to see the upspringing of the streams of active and strenuous
life; to watch the great struggles of the world, not always the
greatest in war, but the often more mighty, if quiet and dead silent,
whose sweeping powerfulness is hidden under a smooth calmness of
surface--to watch all this is to intimately taste a great delicious
joy of life. The researches of the historian of bygone times are
fascinating--absorbingly fascinating, although he is always
handicapped by remoteness; but the historian of to-day--of his
day--this day--whose day-page of history is read by hundreds of
readers, the day after has set to him a task that calls for all, and
more than all, that he can give--stimulates while it appalls, and
would be killingly wearying if it were not so fascinatingly
attractive. That close contact with the men of this struggling world,
and the men who _do_ things, and shove these life-wheels round, warms
up in one a great love for one's kind--a comrade feeling, like that
which comes from being tent-mates in a long campaign. Two o'clock in
the morning wake to the tramp, tramp of men marching in the
dark--marching out to fight--and the unknown Tommy you march beside
and talk to in low voice, as men talk at that hour, is your comrade
unto the day's end of fighting; when returning, to the sentries'
challenge you answer "A friend," and, dog-tired, you re-enter the
lines, welcomed by his sesame call, "Pass, friend; all is well."

IMPRESSIONS OF A WAR CORRESPONDENT

I

THE DANCE OF DEATH

Death from a Mauser bullet is less painful than the drawing of a
tooth. Such, at least, appears to be the case, speaking generally from
apparent evidence, without having the opportunity of collecting the
opinions of those who have actually died. In books we have read of
shrieks of expiring agony; but ask those who have been on many
battlefields, and they will not tell you they have heard them. As a
rule a sudden exclamation, "I'm hit!" "My God!" "Damn it!" They look
as if staggering from the blow of a fist rather than that from a tiny
pencil of lead--then a sudden paleness, perhaps a grasping of the
hands occasionally as if to hold on to something, when the bottom
seem