The officer made clear all details to us; he described minutely the habits of the Germans as he knew them.  But about his own habits not a word was said.  He was not a human being—­he was an observer, eternally spying through a small slit in the wall of the dug-out.  What he thought about when he was not observing, whether his bed was hard, how he got his meals, whether he was bored, whether his letters came regularly, what his moods were, what was his real opinion of that dug-out as a regular home—­these very interesting matters were not even approached by us.  He was a short, mild officer, with a quiet voice.  Still, after we had shaken hands on parting, the General, who had gone first, turned his bent head under the concealing leafage, and nodded and smiled with a quite particular cordial friendliness.  “Good-afternoon, Blank,” said the General to the officer, and the warm tone of his voice said:  “You know—­don’t you, Blank?—­how much I appreciate you.”  It was a transient revelation.  As, swallowed up in trenches, I trudged away from the lonely officer, the General, resuming his ordinary worldly tone, began to talk about London music-halls and Wish Wynne and other artistes.

Then on another occasion I actually saw at least twenty fighting men!  They were not fighting, but they were pretending, under dangerous conditions, to fight.  They had to practise the bombing of a German trench—­with real bombs.  The young officer in charge explained to us the different kinds of bombs.  “It’s all quite safe,” he said casually, “until I take this pin out.”  And he took the pin out.  We saw the little procession of men that were to do the bombing.  We saw the trench, with its traverses, and we were shown just how it would be bombed, traverse by traverse.  We saw also a “crater” which was to be bombed and stormed.  And that was about all we did see.  The rest was chiefly hearing, because we had to take shelter behind such slight eminences as a piece of ordinary waste ground can offer.  Common wayfarers were kept out of harm by sentries.  We were instructed to duck.  We ducked.  Bang!  Bang!  Bang!  Bang!  Bang!—­Bang!  Then the mosquito-like whine of bits of projectile above our heads!  Then we ventured to look over, and amid wisps of smoke the bombers were rushing a traverse.  Strange to say, none of them was killed, or even wounded.

On still another occasion I saw a whole brigade, five or six thousand men, with their first-line transport, and two Generals with implacable eyes watching them for faults.  It was a fine, very picturesque display of Imperial militancy, but too marvellously spick-and-span to produce any illusion of war.  So far as I was concerned, its chief use was to furnish a real conception of numbers.  I calculated that if the whole British Army passed before my eyes at the same brisk rate as that solitary and splendid brigade, I should have to stare at it night and day for about three weeks, without surcease for meals.  This calculation only increased my astonishment at the obstinate in-discoverability of the Army.