... The stars are coming out. Far away, over what seems like water with
lights upon it, there are dim snowy mountains--majestic--rising into the
sky. The noise and clamour of the factories are all quiet in the night.
Two thoughts remain with me--Britain's ships in the North Sea--Britain's
soldiers in the trenches. And encircling and sustaining both the justice
of a great cause--as these white Highland hills look down upon and
encircle this valley.

IV

Dear H.

A million and a half of men--over a quarter of a million of women--working
in some 4,000 State-controlled workshops for the supply of munitions of
war, not only to our own troops, but to those of our allies--the whole, in
the main, a creation of six months' effort--this is the astonishing
spectacle of some of the details of which I have tried, as an eye-witness,
to give you in my previous letters a rapid and imperfect sketch.

But what of the men, the Armies, for which these munitions are being made
and hurried to the fighting-lines? It was at Aldershot, a few days ago,
that I listened to some details of the first rush of the new Armies, given
me by a member of the Headquarters Staff who had been through it all.
Aldershot in peace time held about 27,000 troops. Since the outbreak of
war some million and a quarter of men have passed through the great camp,
coming in ceaselessly for training and equipment, and going out again to
the theatres of war.

In the first days and weeks of the war--during and after the marvellous
precision and rapidity with which the Expeditionary Force was despatched
to France--men poured in from all parts, from all businesses and
occupations; rich and poor, north and south country men, English, Scotch,
Irish, and Welsh; men from the Dominions, who had flung themselves into
the first home-coming steamer; men from India, and men from the uttermost
parts of Africa and Asia who had begged or worked their way home. They
were magnificent material. They came with set faces, asking only for
training, training, training!--and "what the peace soldier learns in six
months," said my companion, "they learnt in six weeks. We had neither
uniforms nor rifles, neither guns nor horses for them. We did not know how
to feed them or to house them. In front of the headquarters at Aldershot,
that Mecca of the soldier, where no one would dare to pass in ordinary
times whose turnout is not immaculate, the most extraordinary figures, in
bowler hats an