of it we are allowed to draw out, and motor slowly past long lines of troops on the march; first, R.E.’s with their store waggons, large and small; then a cyclist detachment; a machine-gun detachment; field kitchens, a white goat lying lazily on the top of one of them; mules, heavily laden; and Lewis guns in little carts.  Then infantry marching briskly in the keen air, while along other roads, visible to east and west, we see other columns converging.  A division, apparently, on the march.  The physique of the men, their alert and cheerful looks, strike me particularly.  This pitiless war seems to have revealed to England herself the quality of her race.  Though some credit must be given to the physical instructors of the Army!—­who in the last twelve months especially have done a wonderful work.

At last we turn out of the main road, and the endless columns pass away into the distance.  Again, a railway line in process of doubling; beyond, a village, which seems to be mainly occupied by an Army Medical detachment; then two large Casualty Clearing Stations, and a Divisional Dressing Station.  Not many wounded here at present; the section of the line from which we are only some ten miles distant has been comparatively quiet of late.  But what preparations everywhere!  What signs of the coming storm!  Hardly a minute passes as we speed along without its significant sight; horse-lines, Army Service depots bursting with stores,—­a great dump of sandbags—­another of ammunition.

And as I look out at the piles of shells, I think of the most recent figures furnished me by the Ministry of Munitions.  Last year, when the Somme offensive began, and when I was writing England’s Effort, the weekly output of eighteen-pounder shells was 17-1/2 times what it was during the first year of the war. It is now 28 times as much.  Field howitzer ammunition has almost doubled since last July.  That of medium guns and howitzers has more than doubled.  That of the heaviest guns of all (over six-inch) is more than four times as great.  By the growth of ammunition we may guess what has been the increase in guns, especially in those heavy guns we are now pushing forward after the retreating Germans, as fast as roads and railway lines can be made to carry them.  The German Government, through one of its subordinate spokesmen, has lately admitted their inferiority in guns; their retreat, indeed, on the Somme before our pending attack, together with the state of their old lines, now we are in and over them, show plainly enough what they had to fear from the British guns and the abundance of British ammunition.

But what are these strange figures swarming beside the road—­black tousled heads and bronze faces?  Kaffir “boys,” at work in some quarries, feeling the cold, no doubt, on this bright bitter day, in spite of their long coats.  They are part of that large body of native labour, Chinese, Kaffir, Basuto, which is now helping our own men everywhere to push on and push up, as the new labour forces behind them release more and more of the fighting men for that dogged pursuit which is going on there—­in that blue distance to our right!—­where the German line swings stubbornly back, south-east, from the Vimy Ridge.