seeing and learning, which few wish
to forgo.

And that brings me to what is now shaping itself--the final result. The
year just passed, indeed--from March to March--has practically rounded
our task--though the "learning" of the Army is never over!--and has seen
the transformation--whether temporary or permanent, who yet can
tell?--of the England of 1914, with its zealous mobs of untrained and
"tatterdemalion" recruits, into a great military power,[This letter was
finished just as the news of the Easter Monday Battle of Arras was
coming in.] disposing of armies in no whit inferior to those of Germany,
and bringing to bear upon the science of war--now that Germany has
forced us to it--the best intelligence, and the best _character_, of the
nation. The most insolent of the German military newspapers are already
bitterly confessing it.

* * * * *

My summary--short and imperfect as it is--of this first detailed account
of its work which the War Office has allowed to be made public--has
carried me far afield.

The motor has been waiting long at the door of the hospitable
headquarters which have entertained us! Let me return to it, to the
great spectacle of the present--after this retrospect of the Past.

Again the crowded roads--the young and vigorous troops--the manifold
sights illustrating branch after branch of the Army. I recall a draft,
tired with marching, clambering with joy into some empty lorries, and
sitting there peacefully content, with legs dangling and the ever
blessed cigarette for company, then an aeroplane station--then a
football field, with a violent game going on--a Casualty Clearing
Station, almost a large hospital--another football match!--a battery of
eighteen-pounders on the march, and beyond an old French market town
crowded with lorries and men. In the midst of it D---- suddenly draws my
attention to a succession of great nozzles passing us, with their teams
and limbers. I have stood beside the forging and tempering of their
brothers in the gun-shops of the north, have watched the testing and
callipering of their shining throats. They are 6-inch naval guns on
their way to the line--like everything else, part of the storm to come.

And in and out, among the lorries and the guns, stream the French folk,
women, children, old men, alert, industrious, full of hope, with
friendly looks for their Allies. Then the town passes, and we are out
again in the open country,