man. Yet in a hospital there
is much ground for believing that shining qualities which amid the
refinements of civilisation are often absent--staunch, and even tender
comradeship, readiness to judge kindly if judge at all, resolute
endurance, and absence of self-seeking, so typical of our fighting
men--have their root in a genuine religious experience more often than
is, in the battalions, immediately evident. It has been my experience,
again and again, that with dying men who have sunk into the last
lethargy, irresponsive to every other word, the Name of Jesus still can
penetrate and arouse. The hurried breathing becomes for a moment
regular, or the eyelids flicker, or the hand faintly returns the
pressure. I have scarcely ever known this to fail though all other
communication had stopped. It is surely very significant and moving.

THE AFTERMATH OF LOOS

CHAPTER IV

THE AFTERMATH OF LOOS

I

_The Flavour of Victory_

The jolliest man in the field is the man who, so to say, has been safely
wounded, that is, whose wound is serious enough to take him right down
the line, with a good prospect of crossing to Blighty, but not so
serious as to cause anxiety. I never met so hilarious a crowd as the
first batch of wounded from the fighting of 25th September 1915. We had
been prepared for a 'rush.' The growling of the guns had for days past
been growing deeper and more extended. It is, as a matter of fact,
impossible to keep a future offensive concealed. The precise time and
place may be unknown, but the gathering together of men, the piling up
of ammunition, and the necessary preparations for great numbers of
wounded, advertise inevitably that something is afoot. The ranks are not
slow to read the signs of the times: they say, for example, that an
inspection by the divisional-general can only mean one thing. How much
crosses to the other side it is hard to say, but the local inhabitants
know all that is common talk, and sometimes a great deal more. They have
eyes in their heads; they can see practice charges being carried
through, and note which regiments carry battle-marks on their uniforms;
and the little shops and estaminets are just soldiers' clubs where
gossip is 'swapped' as freely as in the London west-end clubs, and
unfortunately, is much better informed. A woman working on a farm once
told me to what part of the line a certain division was going on
returning from rest, and she gave a date. The co