ublic schools praised their enemy.

"The machine-gunners are wonderful fellows--topping. Fight until they're
killed. They gave us hell."

Each man among those thousands of wounded had escaped death a dozen
times or more by the merest flukes of luck. It was this luck of theirs
which they hugged with a kind of laughing excitement.

"It's a marvel I'm here! That shell burst all round me. Killed six of
my pals. I've got through with a blighty wound. No bones broken... God!
What luck!"

The death of other men did not grieve them. They could not waste this
sense of luck in pity. The escape of their own individuality, this
possession of life, was a glorious thought. They were alive! What luck!
What luck!

We called the hospital at Corbie the "Butcher's Shop." It was in a
pretty spot in that little town with a big church whose tall white
towers looked down a broad sweep of the Somme, so that for miles they
were a landmark behind the battlefields. Behind the lines during those
first battles, but later, in 1918, when the enemy came nearly to the
gates of Amiens, a stronghold of the Australians, who garrisoned it and
sniped pigeons for their pots off the top of the towers, and took no
great notice of "whizz-bangs" which broke through the roofs of cottages
and barns. It was a safe, snug place in July of '16, but that Butcher's
Shop at a corner of the square was not a pretty spot. After a visit
there I had to wipe cold sweat from my forehead, and found myself
trembling in a queer way. It was the medical officer--a colonel--who
called it that name. "This is our Butcher's Shop," he said, cheerily.
"Come and have a look at my cases. They're the worst possible; stomach
wounds, compound fractures, and all that. We lop off limbs here all day
long, and all night. You've no idea!"

I had no idea, but I did not wish to see its reality. The M.O. could not
understand my reluctance to see his show. He put it down to my desire to
save his time--and explained that he was going the rounds and would take
it as a favor if I would walk with him. I yielded weakly, and cursed
myself for not taking to flight. Yet, I argued, what men are brave
enough to suffer I ought to have the courage to see... I saw and
sickened.

These were the victims of "Victory" and the red fruit of war's
harvest-fields. A new batch of "cases" had just arrived. More were
being brought in on stretchers. They were laid down in rows on the
floor-boards. The colonel bent dow