aint report and show a puff of cotton above the trenches
to the right. It was a bit short--the next fell better. Another nod,
another "Whr-r-row?/" from somewhere behind us, and this time the
cottony puff was just short of the clump of trees where the Russians had
concealed their battery. I picked up the spot through the glass and--
one might have known !--there was One of those eternal peasants calmly
swinging his scythe about fifty yards short of the spot where the
shrapnel had exploded. I could see him straighten up, glance at it,
then go on with his mowing again.

There was a certain elegance, a fine spaciousness about these
artillery-men and their work which made one more content with war again.
No huddling in muddy trenches here, waiting to be smashed by jagged
chunks of iron--everything clean, aloof, scientific, exact, a matter of
fine wires crossing on a periscope lens, of elevation, wind pressure,
and so on, and everything in the wide outdoors, and done, so to say,
with a magnificent gesture.

People drive high-power motor-cars and ride strong horses because of the
sense of power it gives them--how about standing on a hill, looking over
miles of splendid country to where a huddle of ants and hobby-horse
specks--say a battalion or two--are just crawling around a hill or
jammed on a narrow bridge, and then to scatter them, herd them, chase
them from one horizon to another with a mere, "Mr. Jones, you may fire
now," and a wave of the hand!

The division commander took us back a mile or so to his headquarters for
lunch, the Russians slowly waking up and sending a few perfunctory
shells after us as we went over the hill, and here was another genial
party, with three "Hochs" for the guests at the end. Even out here in
empty Galicia the soldiers got their beer. "We're not quite so
temperate as the Russians," the general smiled. "A little alcohol--not
too much--does 'em good."

A young lieutenant who sat next me regaled me with his impression of
things in general. The Russians had squandered ammunition, he said, in
the early days of the war--they would fire twenty rounds or so at a
single cavalryman or anything that showed itself. They were short now,
but a supply would come evidently every now and then, for they would
blaze away for a day or so, then there would be a lull again. They were
short on officers, too, but not so much as you might think, because they
kept their officers well back of the line, g