r head. And yet, do
you know, it is really remarkable how little damage they do against
earth trenches. With a whole morning's shelling, not a single man of
my company was killed, although not a single shell missed what it had
aimed at by more than fifty yards. That makes all the difference, that
fifty yards. If you only keep your head down, you are as safe as
houses; exactly, you will remark, "as safe as houses."

The Things the Wounded Talk About

[A British Surgeon, in The London Times, Dec. 22, 1914.]

If you would realize fully what the war, as an event in the procession
of events, means you must come to France and visit a military
hospital. You must make this visit not as a sightseer, nor yet in the
spirit of a philanthropist, but only as a friend. You must come
prepared to listen to stories that have no relation to war and the
affairs of war--most soldiers, I think, are reluctant to speak of the
things they have seen--to stories that concern home ties and the
doings, real and conjectured, of children--queer, sentimental stories
woven around old ideas like the Christmas idea and the idea of home.

They will fill you with wonder at first, those unwarlike tales,
because they belong to the truly unexpected, against which it is
impossible to be prepared. It would not be an exaggeration to describe
the first effect of them as startling. They kill so many illusions and
they discredit so many beliefs. War, rendered thus the background of
life, assumes a new proportion and a new meaning. Or, rather, it
becomes vague and meaningless, like a darkness.

A few days ago I sat by the bedside of a wounded sapper--a
reservist--and heard the story of life in a signal-box on a branch
line in the North of England. The man was dying. I think he knew it.
But the zest of his everyday life was still strong in him. He
described the manner in which, on leaving the army originally, he had
obtained his post on the railway. He told me that there were three
trains each way in the day, and mentioned that on Winter nights the
last train was frequently very late. This meant a late supper, but his
wife saw to it that everything was kept hot. Sometimes his wife came
to the box to meet him if it was a dry night.

In the next bed there was a young Scotsman from a Highland district
which I know very well. We were friends so soon as he learned that I
knew his home. He was a roadman, and we talked of his roads and the
changes which had b