ies for the men and
munitions for the guns. Now we turn out for the rumbling tank-like
caterpillars, which slowly creep forward, drawing the big guns up to
the front; then we pass a light field-battery. Next comes a battalion
of Tommies swinging down the road, loaded like Christmas trees with
their cumbrous kits, sweating, singing, whistling, as they march by
with dogged cheer toward the trenches.

We have crossed the Somme with its memories of blood, on across
northern France, and now we have passed the Belgian frontier and are in
the historic fields of Flanders, where the creaking windmills are still
grinding the peasants' corn, and the little church spires stand guard
over the sleeping villages. A turn of the road brings us close within
sound of the guns, which by night are heard far across France and along
the coasts of England. Soon we enter villages, which lie within range
of the enemy's "heavies," with their shattered window glass, torn
roofs, ruined houses, tottering churches, and deep shell holes in the
streets. Now we are in the danger zone and have to put on our
shrapnel-proof steel helmets, and box respirators, to be ready for a
possible attack of poison gas.

Another turn in the road, and the great battle field rises in grim
reality before us. Far to the left stands the terrible Ypres salient,
so long swept by the tide of war, and away to the right are the blasted
woods of "Plug Street." Right before us rises the historic ridge of
Messines, won at such cost during the summer. We are standing now at
the foot of the low ridge where the British trenches were so long held
under the merciless fire of the enemy. From here to the top of the
ridge the ground has been fought over, inch by inch and foot by foot.
It is blasted and blackened, deep seamed by shot and shell. The trees
stand on the bare ridge, stiff and stark, charred and leafless, like
lonely sentinels of the dead. The ground, without a blade of grass
left, is torn and tossed as by earthquake and volcano. Trenches have
been blown into shapeless heaps of debris. Deep shell holes and mine
craters mark the advance of death. Small villages are left without one
stone or brick upon another, mere formless heaps, ground almost to
dust. Deserted in wild confusion, half buried in the churned mud, on
every hand are heaps of unused ammunition, bombs, gas shells, and
infernal machines wrecked or hurriedly left in the enemy's flight.

Here on June