thout a bullet mark upon them when every building in the
vicinity has been laid in ruins. I know two cases in which there is
not one stone remaining of the church, yet the crucifix that was inside
stands in untouched security. There are always those who see in these
things a supernatural agency as some saw "angels at Mons," and as for
me I do not seek to explain them, knowing that there are more things in
heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.

I am reluctant to leave this chapter with its peaceful memories, for it
is the antechamber of hell. There is little here that hints of the
brimstone and fire just through the door. But our path lies that way
and we must pass on.

CHAPTER XXII

THE SOMME

The battle of the Somme lasted eight months, and never since the days
of chaos and darkness has a portion of the earth been under the sway of
such forces of destruction. Not even the Flood itself so completely
destroyed the habitations of man. Flourishing towns were powdered into
brick-dust, thousands of acres of forest were reduced to a few
blackened stumps, and every foot of ground was blasted and churned and
battered again, while every yard was sown thick with bullets more
malignant than the seeds planted by Jason. To-day nature is busy
trying to hide the evidence of the hate of man, and long grass and
poppies cover the blackened soil and grow in the shell-holes, until
only in the memory of the men who strove nakedly in its desolation and
death will the knowledge of that area as it was for those eight long
months remain. If he visits it again the poppies and the grass will
fade, and it will appear to him once more as the ploughed land of
demons, and grinning at him in every yard will be the skulls of the
countless unburied that there lie. The other birds will shun it, for
there are no trees, but the lark will still sing on, as this
brave-hearted bird continues to do even when the guns are booming.

Australian blood has sanctified much of that soil, and Australian
bravery has monopolized some of its names. As surely as Gallipoli will
Pozieres and Thiepval and Bapaume be associated with the name and
achievement of Australians in the minds of readers of the history of
the great war. These are places that will ever be names of honor and
glory in the thought of the Australian people as will be Flers to New
Zealand and Delville Wood to South Africa.

At Pozieres the First and Second Divisions