gray which clung to their faces. A fall of rain came as a blessing to
Briton and German alike. German prisoners worn with exhaustion had
complexions the tint of their uniforms. If the British seemed weary
sometimes, one had only to see the prisoners to realize that the
defensive was suffering more than the offensive. The fatigue of some of
the men was of the kind that one week's sleep or a month's rest will not
cure; something fixed in their beings.

It was a new kind of fighting for the Germans. They smarted under it,
they who had been used to the upper hand. In the early stages of the war
their artillery had covered their well-ordered charges; they had been
killing the enemy with gunfire. Now the Allies were returning the
compliment; the shoe was on the other foot. A striking change, indeed,
from "On to Paris!" the old battle-cry of leaders who had now come to
urge these men to the utmost of endurance and sacrifice by telling them
that if they did not hold against the relentless hammering of British
and French guns what had been done to French villages would be done to
their own.

Prisoners spoke of peace as having been promised as close at hand by
their officers. In July the date had been set as Sept. 1st. Later, it
was set as Nov. 1st. The German was as a swimmer trying to reach shore,
in this case peace, with the assurance of those who urged him on that a
few more strokes would bring him there. Thus have armies been urged on
for years.

Those fighting did not have, as had the prisoners, their eyes opened to
the vast preparations behind the British lines to carry on the
offensive. Mostly the prisoners were amiable, peculiarly unlike the
proud men taken in the early days of the war when confidence in their
"system" as infallible was at its height. Yet there were exceptions. I
saw an officer marching at the head of the survivors of his battalion
along the road from Montauban one day with his head up, a cigar stuck in
the corner of his mouth at an aggressive angle, his unshaven chin and
dusty clothes heightening his attitude of "You go to ----, you English!"

The hatred of the British was a strengthening factor in the defense.
Should they, the Prussians, be beaten by New Army men? No! Die first!
said Prussian officers. The German staff might be as good as ever, but
among the mixed troops--the old and the young, the hollow-chested and
the square-shouldered, mouth-breathers with spectacles and bent fathers
of familie