his morning a Zeppelin
rose into view on the skyline. Shell fire pursued it, and it sank
again--rumour says in the British lines. Rumour is our only war
correspondent at present. It is far easier to follow the course of
events from home, where newspapers are more plentiful than here.

But the grim realities of war are coming home to us. Outside this farm
stands a tall tree. Not many months ago a party of Uhlans arrived
here, bringing with them a wounded British prisoner. They crucified
him to that self-same tree, and stood round him till he died. He was a
long time dying.

Some of us had not heard of Uhlans before. These have now noted the
name, for future reference--and action.

XV

IN THE TRENCHES--AN OFF-DAY

This town is under constant shell fire. It goes on day after day:
it has been going on for months. Sometimes a single shell comes:
sometimes half a dozen. Sometimes whole batteries get to work. The
effect is terrible. You who live at home in ease have no conception of
what it is like to live in a town which is under intermittent shell
fire.

I say this advisedly. You have no conception whatsoever.

We get no rest. There is a distant boom, followed by a crash overhead.
Cries are heard--the cries of women and children. They are running
frantically--running to observe the explosion, and if possible pick
up a piece of the shell as a souvenir. Sometimes there are not enough
souvenirs to go round, and then the clamour increases.

We get no rest, I say--only frightfulness. British officers, walking
peaceably along the pavement, are frequently hustled and knocked aside
by these persons. Only the other day, a full colonel was compelled to
turn up a side-street, to avoid disturbing a ring of excited children
who were dancing round a beautiful new hole in the ground in the
middle of a narrow lane.

If you enter into a cafe or estaminet, a total stranger sidles to your
table, and, having sat down beside you, produces from the recesses
of his person a fragment of shrapnel. This he lays before you, and
explains that if he had been standing at the spot where the shell
burst, it would have killed him. You express polite regret, and pass
on elsewhere, seeking peace and finding none. The whole thing is a
public scandal.

Seriously, though, it is astonishing what contempt familiarity can
breed, even in the case of high-explosive shells. This little town
lies close behind the trenches. All day long the big gun