h flesh and blood infantry held against
double its own numbers supported by guns firing five times the number of
British shells. The British could not confess their situation without
giving encouragement to the Germans to press harder such attacks as
those of the first and second battle of Ypres, which came perilously
near succeeding.

This little army would not admit the truth even in its own mind. With
that casualness by which the Englishman conceals his emotions the
surviving officers of battalions which had been battered for months in
the trenches would speak of being "top dog, now." While the world was
thinking that the New Army would soon arrive to their assistance, they
knew as only trained soldiers can know how long it takes to make an army
out of raw material. So persistent was their pose of winning that it
hypnotized them into conviction. As it had never occurred to them that
they could be beaten, so they were not.

If sometimes the logic of fact got the better of simulation, they would
speak of the handicap of fighting an enemy who could deliver blows with
the long reach of his guns to which they could not respond. But this did
not happen often. It was a part of the game for the German to marshal
more guns than they if he could. They accepted the situation and fought
on. They, too, looked forward to "the day," as the Germans had before
the war; and their day was the one when the New Army should be ready to
strike its first blow.

There was also a new leader in France, king of the British world there.
Sir William sent him the new battalions and the guns and the food for
men and guns and his business was to make them into an army. They
arrived thinking that they were already one, as they were against any
ordinary foe, though not yet in homogeneity of organization against a
foe that had prepared for war for forty years and on top of this had had
two years' experience in actual battle.

On a quiet byroad near headquarters town, where all the staff business
of General Headquarters was conducted, a wisp of a flag hung at the
entrance to the grounds of a small modern chateau. There seemed no place
in all France more isolated and tranquil, its size forbidding many
guests. It was such a house as some quiet, studious man might have
chosen to rest in during his summer holiday. The sound of the guns never
reached it; the rumble of army transport was unheard.

Should you go there to luncheon you would be received by