at the rate of a century a year, as we are here?  Here in bountiful England we are living on rations.  I spent a night with the King a fortnight ago, and he gave us only so much bread, one egg apiece, and—­lemonade.  We are to begin bread tickets next week.  All this is perfectly healthful and wholesome and as much as I ever eat.  But the hard part of it is that it’s necessary.  We haven’t more than six weeks’ food supply and the submarines sunk eighty-eight ships—­237,000 tons—­last week.  These English do not publish these harrowing facts, and nobody knows them but a few official people.  And they are destroying the submarines at a most beggarly slow rate.  They work far out at sea—­100 to 200 miles—­and it’s as hard to find them as it would be to find whales.  The simple truth is we are in a dangerous plight.  If they could stop this submarine warfare, the war would pretty quickly be won, for the Germans are in a far worse plight for food and materials and they are getting much the worst of it on land.  The war would be won this summer or autumn if the submarine could be put out of business.  If it isn’t, the Germans may use this success to keep their spirits up and go on till next year.

We (the United States) have about 40 destroyers.  We are sending over 6!  I’m doing my best to persuade the Government at Washington to send every one we have.  But, since the British conceal the facts from their own press and the people and from all the world, the full pressure of the situation is hard to exert on Washington.  Our Admiral (Sims) and I are trying our best, and we are spending enough on cables to build a destroyer.  All this, you must, of course, regard as a dark secret; but it’s a devilish black secret.

I don’t mean that there’s any danger of losing the war.  Even if the British armies have to have their food cut down and people here go hungry, they’ll win; but the winning may be a long time off.  Nothing but their continued success can keep the Germans going.  Their people are war-weary and hungry.  Austria is knocked out and is starving.  Turkey is done up but can go on living on nothing, but not fighting much more.  When peace comes, there’ll be a general famine, on the continent at least, and no ships to haul food.  This side of the world will have to start life all over again—­with insufficient men to carry things on and innumerable maimed men who’ll have (more or less) to be cared for.  The horror of the whole thing nobody realizes.  We’ve all got used to it here; and nobody clearly remembers just what the world was like in peace times; those times were so far away.  All this I write not to fill you with horrors but to prove that I speak the literal truth when I say that it seems a hundred years since I had before heard from you.

Just how all this affects a man, no man can accurately tell.  Of how much use I’ll be when I can get home, I don’t know.  Sometimes I think that I shall be of vastly greater