We have heard enough—­quite enough for most of us?—­about the German Crown Prince.  But there is also a prince with the British army in France.  No lieutenant looks younger for his years than this one in the Grenadier Guards, and he seems of the same type as the others when you see him marching with his regiment or off for a walk smoking a brier-wood pipe.  There are some officers who would rather not accompany him on his walks, for he can go fast and far.  He makes regular reports of his observations, and he has opportunities for learning which other subalterns lack, for he may have both the staff and the army as personal instructors.  Otherwise, his life is that of any other subaltern; for there is an instrument called the British Constitution which regulates many things.  A little shy, very desirous to learn, is Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland and the Empire of India.  He might be called the willing prince.

This was one of the shells that hit—­one of the hundred that hit.  The time was summer; the place, the La Bassee region.  Probably the fighting was all the harder here because it is so largely blind.  When you cannot see what an enemy is doing you keep on pumping shells into the area which he occupies; you take no risks with him.

The visitor may see about as much of what is going on in the La Bassee region as an ant can see of the surrounding landscape when promenading in the grass.  The only variation in the flatness of the land is the overworked ditches which try to drain it.  Look upward, and rows of poplar trees along the level, and a hedge, a grove, a cottage, or trees and shrubs around it, limit your vision.  Thus, if a breeze starts timidly in a field it is stopped before it goes far.  That “hot corner” is all the hotter for a burning July sun.  The army water-carts which run back to wells of cool water are busy filling empty canteens, while shrapnel trims the hedges.

A stretcher was being borne into the doorway of an estaminet which had escaped destruction by shells, and above the door was chalked some lettering which indicated that it was a first clearing station for the wounded.  Lying on other stretchers on the floor were some wounded men.  Of the two nearest, one had a bandage around his head and one a bandage around his arm.  They had been stunned, which was only natural when you have been as close as they had to a shell-burst—­a shell that made a hit.  The concussion was bound to have this effect.

A third man was the best illustration of shell-destructiveness.  Bullets make only holes.  Shells make gouges, fractures, pulp.  He, too, had a bandaged head and had been hit in several places; but the worst wound was in the leg, where an artery had been cut.  He was weak, with a sort of where-am-I look in his eyes.  If the fragment which had hit his leg had hit his head, or his neck, or his abdomen, he would have been killed instantly.  He was also an illustration of how hard it is to kill a man even with several shell-fragments, unless some of them strike in the right place.  For he was going to live; the surgeon had whispered the fact in his ear, that one important fact.  He had beaten the German shell, after all.