the words, "One of the best." So I took off
my hat and stood awhile beside that lonely mound of muddy earth ere I
went my way.

Slowly our car lurched onward through the waste, and presently on
either side the way I saw other such mounds and crosses, by twos and
threes, by fifties, by hundreds, in long rows beyond count. And
looking around me on this dreary desolation I knew that one day
(since nothing dies) upon this place of horror grass would grow and
flowers bloom again; along this now desolate and deserted road people
would come by the thousand; these humble crosses and mounds of muddy
earth would become to all Britons a holy place where so many of our
best and bravest lie, who, undismayed, have passed through the
portals of Death into the fuller, greater, nobler living.

Full of such thoughts I turned for one last look, and then I saw that
the setting sun had turned each one of these humble little crosses
into things of shining glory.

IX

A TRAINING CAMP

The great training camp lay, a rain-lashed wilderness of windy levels
and bleak, sandy hills, range upon range, far as the eye could see,
with never a living thing to break the monotony. But presently, as
our car lurched and splashed upon its way, there rose a sound that
grew and grew, the awesome sound of countless marching feet.

On they came, these marching men, until we could see them by the
hundred, by the thousand, their serried ranks stretching away and
away until they were lost in distance. Scots were here, Lowland and
Highland; English and Irish were here, with bronzed New Zealanders,
adventurous Canadians and hardy Australians; men, these, who had come
joyfully across half the world to fight, and, if need be, die for
those ideals which have made the Empire assuredly the greatest and
mightiest this world has ever known. And as I listened to the
rhythmic tramp of these countless feet, it seemed like the voice of
this vast Empire proclaiming to the world that Wrong and Injustice
must cease among the nations; that man, after all, despite all the
"Frightfulness" that warped intelligence may conceive, is yet
faithful to the highest in him, faithful to that deathless,
purposeful determination that Right shall endure, the abiding belief
of which has brought him through the dark ages, through blood and
misery and shame, on his progress ever upward.

So, while these men of the Empire tramped past through blinding rain
and wind, our car stopped