avelled fifty miles by motor lorries and any conveyance he could pick
up on the road. He had left his unit to come to have a glimpse of our
front-line trench where his son was buried. The boy had died there some
days ago in going over the parapet. I persuaded him that he ought not to
go alone, and that in any case it wasn't a healthy spot. At last he
consented to let me take him to a point from which he could see the
ground over which his son had attacked and led his men. The sun was
sinking behind us. He stood there very straightly, peering through my
glasses--and then forgot all about me and began speaking to his son in
childish love-words. "Gone West," they call dying out here--we rarely
say that a man is dead. I found out afterwards that it was the boy's
mother the Major was thinking of when he pledged himself to visit the
grave in the front-line.

But there are happier things than that. For instance, you should hear
us singing at night in our dug-out--every tune we ever learnt, I
believe. Silver Threads Among the Gold, In the Gloaming, The Star of
Bethlehem, I Hear You Calling Me, interspersed with Everybody Works but
Father, and Poor Old Adam, etc.

I wish I could know in time when I get my leave for you to come over and
meet me. I'm going to spend my nine days in the most glorious ways
imaginable. To start with I won't eat anything that's canned and, to go
on, I won't get out of bed till I feel inclined. And if you're there--!

Dreams and nonsense! God bless you all and keep us near and safe though
absent. Alive or "Gone West" I shall never be far from you; you may
depend on that--and I shall always hope to feel you brave and happy.
This is a great game--cheese-mites pitting themselves against all the
splendours of Death. Please, please write well ahead, so that I may not
miss your Christmas letters.

Yours lovingly,
CON.

XXVII

November 6th, 1916.

My Dear Ones:

Such a wonderful day it has been--I scarcely know where to start. I came
down last night from twenty-four hours in the mud, where I had been
observing. I'd spent the night in a hole dug in the side of the trench
and a dead Hun forming part of the roof. I'd sat there re-living so many
things--the ecstatic moments of my life when I first touched fame--and
my feet were so cold that I could not feel them, so I thought all the
harder of the pleasant things of the past. Then, as