nse of humour and ironic wit have
often twisted me into painful knots of mirth. But there was no glint of
humour in the Philosopher's eyes when he stared at the greyness of
the Strategist.

"The pace has been too hot," he said. "We seem to forget that there's
a limit to the strain we can put on the human machine. It's not only
the physical fatigue. It's the continual output of nervous energy. All
this misery, all that damn thing over there"--he waved his paw at the
darkening hills beyond which was a great hostile army--"the sight of
all these refugees spilt out of their cities and homes as though a great
hand had tipped up the earth, is beginning to tell on us, my lads. We
are spending our reserve force, and we are just about whacked!"

Yet we went on, mixed up always in refugee rushes, in masses of
troops moving forward to the front or backwards in retreat, getting
brief glimpses of the real happenings behind the screen of secrecy,
meeting the men who could tell us the hidden truth, and more than
once escaping, by the nick of time only, from a death-trap into which
we had tumbled unwittingly, not knowing the whereabouts of the
enemy, nor his way of advance.

7

In the early days of the war, the first stampede which overwhelmed
us had a touch of comedy unless one's imagination were shocked by
the panic of great crowds, in which always and for whatever cause
there is something degrading to the dignity of human nature. It was
the panic rush of the world's tourists suddenly trapped by war in the
pleasure haunts of Europe. They had come out to France,
Switzerland, Italy and Egypt with well-lined purses, for the most part,
and with the absolute conviction not disturbed by any shadow of
doubt, that their ways would be made smooth by Cook's guides, hotel
managers, British and American consuls, and foreigners of all classes
eager to bow before them, to show them the sights, to carry their
baggage, to lick, if need be, their boots. They had money, they
belonged to the modern aristocracy of the well-to-do. Was not Europe
their garden of pleasure, providing for them, in return for the price of a
season ticket, old monuments, famous pictures, sunsets over Swiss
mountains, historic buildings starred by Baedeker, peculiar customs
of aborigines, haunts of vice to be viewed with a sense of virtue, and
good hotels in which there was a tendency to over-eat?

The pleasure of these rich Americans and comfortable English
tourists