your 'eart bleed. I've seen a lot of them country
people. Cruel it is! Women, old men, little children, 'armless
people--enough to make your 'eart bleed. I used to think of the folk
over 'ere. Don't think English women'd stand what the French and Belgian
women do. Those poor women over there--wonderful they are. There yu'll
see 'em sittin' outside their 'omes just a heap o' ruins--clingin' to
'em. Wonderful brave and patient--make your 'eart bleed to see 'em.
Things I've seen! There's some proper brutes among the Germans--must be.
Yu don't feel very kind to 'em when yu've seen what I've seen. We 'ave
some games with 'em, though"--he laughed again: "Very nervous people,
the Germans. If we stop firin' in our lines, up they send the star
shells, rockets and all, to see what's goin' on--think we're goin' to
attack--regular 'lumination o' fireworks--very nervous people. Then we
send up some rockets on our side--just to 'ave some fun--proper display
o' fireworks." He went off into a roar: "Must 'ave a bit o' fun, you
know."

"Is it true they can't stand the bayonet?"

"Yes, that's right--they'll tell yu so themselves--very sensitive,
nervous people."

And after that a silence fell. The elder babe was still fretful, and the
mother's face had on it that most moving phenomenon of this world--the
strange, selfless, utterly absorbed look, mouth just loosened, eyes off
where we cannot follow, the whole being wrapped in warmth of her baby
against her breast. And he, with the tiny placid baby, had gone off into
another sort of dream, with his slightly frowning, far-away look. What
was it all about?--nothing perhaps! A great quality, to be able to rest
in vacancy.

He stirred and I offered him the paper, but he shook his head.

"Thank yu; don't care about lookin' at 'em. They don't know half what we
do out there--from what I've seen of 'em since I come back, I don't seem
to 'ave any use for 'em. The pictures, too--" He shrugged and shook his
head. "We 'ave the real news, y'see. They don't keep nothin' from us.
But we're not allowed to say. When we advance there'll be some lives
lost, I tell yu!"

He nodded, thinking for a second perhaps of his own. "Can't be helped!
Once we get 'em on the run, we shan't give 'em much time." Just then the
baby on his knee woke up and directed on him the full brunt of its
wide-open bright grey eyes. Its rosy cheeks were so broad and fat that
its snub nose seemed but a button; its mouth, too tiny,