e last I had been along the road the country had
been "searched" too thoroughly. One wall of 1910 farm remained. Chickens
pecked feebly among the rest of it.

Coming into Festubert I felt that something was wrong. The village had
been damnably shelled--that I had expected--and there was not a soul to
be seen. I thought of the father and mother and daughter who, returning
to their home while we were there in October, had wept because a fuse
had gone through the door and the fireplace and all their glass had been
broken. Their house was now a heap of nothing in particular. The mirror
I had used lay broken on the top of about quarter of a wall. Still
something was wrong, and Huggie, who had been smiling at my puzzled
face, said gently in an off-hand way--

"Seen the church?"

That was it! The church had simply disappeared. In the old days riding
up from Gorre the fine tower of the church rose above the houses at the
end of the street. The tower had been shelled and had fallen crashing
through the roof.

We met a sapper coming out of a cottage. He was rather amused at our
sentimental journey, and warned us that the trenches were considerably
nearer the village than they had been in our time. We determined to push
on as it was now dusk, but my engine jibbed, and we worked on it in the
gloom among the dark and broken houses. The men in the trenches roused
themselves to a sleepless night, and intermittent rifle-shots rang out
in the damp air.

We rode north to the Estaminet de l'Epinette, passing a road which
forking to the right led to a German barricade. The estaminet still
lived, but farther down the road the old house which had sheltered a
field ambulance was a pile of rubbish. On we rode by La Couture to
Estaires, where we dined, and so to St Jans Cappel....

Do you know what the Line means? When first we came to Landrecies the
thought of the Frontier as something strong and stark had thrilled us
again and again, but the Frontier was feeble and is nothing. A man of
Poperinghe told me his brother was professor, his son was serving, his
wife and children were "over there." He pointed to the German lines. Of
his wife and children he has heard nothing for four months. Some of us
are fighting to free "German" Flanders, the country where life is dark
and bitter. Those behind our line, however confident they may be, live
in fear, for if the line were to retire a little some of them would be
cast into the bitter country. A