as evidently shooting blind, or by the map,
for they dropped anywhere but near their objectives. Anyway it was his
shoot and it was not up to us to correct him.

CHAPTER XXV

THE EVE OF GREAT EVENTS

A Choppy Cross-Channel Trip--I Indulge in a Reverie--And Try
to Peer Into the Future--At Headquarters Again--Trying to
Cross the River Somme on an Improvised Raft--In Peronne
After the German Evacuation--A Specimen of Hunnish "Kultur."

Since I left France in December many changes had taken place; tremendous
preparations for the next great offensive were in progress. We shall now
see the results of all our hard and bloody work, which began on the
Somme on July 1st, 1916. I think I can safely say that we have never
relaxed our offensive for a single day. Granted the great pressure has
not been kept up, but in proportion to the weather conditions the push
has been driven home relentlessly and ground won foot by foot, yard by
yard, until, in February, 1917, the Germans retired behind their Bapaume
defences.

Just how far they are going back one cannot decide. The fact remains
that the enemy is falling back, not for strategical reasons, as he is so
anxious for his people and neutrals to believe, but because he is forced
to by the superiority of our troops and our dominating gun-power. The
beginning of the end is at hand, the eve of great events is here; the
results of this year's fighting will decide the future peace of the
world, the triumph of Christianity over barbarity, of God over the
devil.

I received instructions to proceed again to France. "The capture of
Bapaume is imminent, you must certainly obtain that," I was told, "and
add another to your list of successes." So I left by the midday
boat-train; the usual crowds were there to see their friends off. A
descriptive writer could fill a volume with impressions gathered on the
station platform an hour before the train starts. Scenes of pathos and
assumed joy; of strong men and women stifling their emotions with a
stubbornness that would do justice to the martyrdom of the Early
Christians in the arenas of Rome.

I arrived at Folkestone; the weather was very cold and a mist hung over
the sea, blotting everything out of view beyond the end of the
breakwater. The train drew up alongside and it emptied itself of its
human khaki freight, who, with one accord, made their way to the waiting
steamboats, painted a dull green-grey. All aboard: q