Coming into Festubert I felt that something was wrong.  The village had been damnably shelled—­that I had expected—­and there was not a soul to be seen.  I thought of the father and mother and daughter who, returning to their home while we were there in October, had wept because a fuse had gone through the door and the fireplace and all their glass had been broken.  Their house was now a heap of nothing in particular.  The mirror I had used lay broken on the top of about quarter of a wall.  Still something was wrong, and Huggie, who had been smiling at my puzzled face, said gently in an off-hand way—­

“Seen the church?”

That was it!  The church had simply disappeared.  In the old days riding up from Gorre the fine tower of the church rose above the houses at the end of the street.  The tower had been shelled and had fallen crashing through the roof.

We met a sapper coming out of a cottage.  He was rather amused at our sentimental journey, and warned us that the trenches were considerably nearer the village than they had been in our time.  We determined to push on as it was now dusk, but my engine jibbed, and we worked on it in the gloom among the dark and broken houses.  The men in the trenches roused themselves to a sleepless night, and intermittent rifle-shots rang out in the damp air.

We rode north to the Estaminet de l’Epinette, passing a road which forking to the right led to a German barricade.  The estaminet still lived, but farther down the road the old house which had sheltered a field ambulance was a pile of rubbish.  On we rode by La Couture to Estaires, where we dined, and so to St Jans Cappel....

Do you know what the Line means?  When first we came to Landrecies the thought of the Frontier as something strong and stark had thrilled us again and again, but the Frontier was feeble and is nothing.  A man of Poperinghe told me his brother was professor, his son was serving, his wife and children were “over there.”  He pointed to the German lines.  Of his wife and children he has heard nothing for four months.  Some of us are fighting to free “German” Flanders, the country where life is dark and bitter.  Those behind our line, however confident they may be, live in fear, for if the line were to retire a little some of them would be cast into the bitter country.  A day will come “when the whole line will advance,” and the welcome we shall receive then from those who have come out of servitude!...  There are men and women in France who live only for that day, just as there are those in this country who would welcome the day of death, so that they might see again those they love....

* * * * *

You may have gathered from my former letters that no friction took place between the professional and amateur soldiers of the Signal Company.  I have tried all through my letters to give you a very truthful idea of our life, and my account would not be complete without some description of the Signal Company and its domestic affairs.