"out"--one recently killed. One was an ambulance
driver under the R.A.M.C. He had five small children, but had volunteered.
"He doesn't say much about the war, except that 'Tommies are wonderful.
They never complain.'" She notices a change in his character. He was
always good to his wife and children--"but now he's splendid!" The brother
of another woman had been a jockey in Belgium, had liked the country and
the people. When war broke out he "felt he must fight for them." He came
home at once and enlisted. Another brother had been a stoker on a war-ship
at the Dardanelles, and was in the famous landing of April 25. Bullets
"thick and fast like hailstorm. Terrible times collecting the dead! Her
brother had worked hard forming burial parties. Was now probably going to
the Tigris. Wrote jolly letters!"

Then there was the little woman born and bred in the Army, with all the
pride of the Army--a familiar type. Husband a sergeant in the Guards--was
gymnastic instructor at a northern town--and need not have gone to the
war, but felt "as a professional soldier" he ought to go. Three brothers
in the Army--one a little drummer-boy of sixteen, badly wounded in the
retreat from Mons. Her sailor brother had died--probably from exposure, in
the North Sea. The most cheerful, plucky little creature! "We are Army
people, and must expect to fight."

Well--you say you "would like America to visualise the effort, the
self-sacrifice of the English men and women who are determined to see this
war through." There was, I thought, a surprising amount of cheerful
effort, of _understanding_ self-sacrifice in those nine homes, where my
companion's friendly talk drew out the family facts without difficulty.
And I am convinced that if I had spent days instead of hours in following
her through the remaining tenements in these huge and populous blocks the
result would have been practically the same. _The nation is behind the
war, and behind the Government_--solidly determined to win this war, and
build a new world after it.

As to the work of our women, I have described something of it in the
munitions area, and if this letter were not already too long, I should
like to dwell on much else--the army of maidens, who, as V.A.D.'s (members
of Voluntary Aid Detachments), trained by the Red Cross, have come
trooping from England's most luxurious or comfortable homes, and are
doing invaluable work in hundreds of hospitals; to begin with, the most
menial