It is the foundation upon which there has been slowly and
carefully built up that mutual confidence which exists between
officers and men, which is the real secret of their wonderful fighting
power. I recalled to Kitchener's memory our service together in South
Africa, and reminded him how truly and faithfully he had always kept
up this tradition in his own exercise of command.

After four months of the most ruthless war the world has ever seen, it
was a curious sensation to find myself once again on English soil and
in the midst of peaceful surroundings. It was one of those mild, balmy
days which we very seldom get in the month of December, and the usual
English Sunday atmosphere of rest and repose was over every object,
animate and inanimate.

I could not help feeling deeply the extraordinary contrast which the
scene presented to that which I had left behind me a few hours before.
Except that one noticed a few men in khaki, there was nothing to
indicate the terrific war which was raging all the time just across
the Channel.

The people of this country have never truly realised the wonderful
immunity from the horrors of war which they alone of all the
belligerent countries have enjoyed. I wonder if it has really struck
any large number of them that, after more than four years of desperate
strife, we are the only people in Europe who can proudly claim that no
enemy has ever occupied one square inch of all our vast Empire
throughout the world, except for a short time in East Africa. The soil
of Germany, Austria, Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria, France, Russia, Italy,
Serbia, and Roumania has been repeatedly violated. It is truly a great
record when we come to think that the sun never sets on the British
flag.

On arriving at Walmer Castle I was very kindly and cordially welcomed
by the Prime Minister. Entering the historic old stronghold, where the
great Iron Duke breathed his last, I remember being at first seized
with a pang of regret; for I thought his spirit would have rested in
greater peace, if, under that famous roof, I could have told the first
Minister of the King that we had once again planted the British flag
in the face of the enemy on the field of Waterloo. It was a dream I
had indulged in from the first, but, alas! like many others, it was
destined never to be realised.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1914.

I had a long discussion with the Prime Minister at Walmer. Mr. Asquith
possesses t