A way had been knocked longitudinally through a whole row of cottages.  We went along this—­it was a lane of watchful figures—­and then it was whispered to us not to talk, for the Germans might hear!  And we peered into mines and burrowed and crawled.  We disappeared into long subterranean passages and emerged among a lot of soldiers gaily eating as they stood.  Close by were a group of men practising with hand-grenades made harmless for the occasion.  I followed the Commandant round a corner, and we gazed at I forget what.  “Don’t stay here,” said the Commandant.  I moved away.  A second after I had moved a bullet struck the wall where I had been standing.  The entire atmosphere of the place, with its imminent sense of danger from an invisible enemy and fierce expectation of damaging that enemy, brought home to me the grand essential truth of the front, namely, that the antagonists are continually at grips, like wrestlers, and straining every muscle to obtain the slightest advantage. ‘’Casual’’ would be the very last adjective to apply to those activities.

Once, after a roundabout tour on foot, one of the Staff Captains ordered an automobile to meet us at the end of a certain road.  Part of this road was exposed to German artillery four or five miles off.  No sooner had the car come down the road than we heard the fearsome sizzling of an approaching shell.  We saw the shell burst before the sound of the sizzling had ceased.  Then came the roar of the explosion.  The shell was a 77-mm. high-explosive.  It fell out of nowhere on the road.  The German artillery methodically searched the exposed portion of the road for about half an hour.  The shells dropped on it or close by it at intervals of two minutes, and they were planted at even distances of about a hundred yards up and down the slope.  I watched the operation from a dug-out close by.  It was an exact and a rather terrifying operation.  It showed that the invisible Germans were letting nothing whatever go by; but it did seem to me to be a fine waste of ammunition, and a very stupid application of a scientific ideal; for while shelling it the Germans must have noticed that there was nothing at all on the road.  We naturally decided not to go up that road in the car, but to skulk through a wood and meet the car in a place of safety.  The car had, sooner or later, to go up the road, because there was not another road.  The Commandant who was with us was a very seasoned officer, and he regarded all military duties as absolute duties.  The car must return along that road.  Therefore, let it go.  The fact that it was a car serving solely for the convenience of civilians did not influence him.  It was a military car, driven by a soldier.

“You may as well go at once,” he said to the chauffeur.  “We will assist at your agony.  What do you say?” he laughingly questioned a subordinate.

“Ah!  My Commandant,” said the junior officer cautiously, “when it is
a question of the service------”

We should naturally have protested against the chauffeur adventuring upon the shell-swept road for our convenience; but he was diplomatic enough to postpone the journey.  After a time the shelling ceased, and he passed in safety.  He told us when we met him later for the drive home that there were five large holes in the road.