“Corporal Livesey told me that Sergeant Brogden[14] was wounded in the arm, Sergeant Stokes killed, and Corporal Chamley wounded.  We saw some horrible sights all the way along.  We were joined by more prisoners as we went down.  German prisoners have only to be told which way to go and they go.  They are quite sociable people too—­many of them bright-eyed boys of seventeen and eighteen.  They are only too glad to carry our wounded men back; they need no escort.  We got on very well indeed with them.  I suppose that in a sense we were comrades in distress, or, rather comrades in good fortune, in that we were all leaving the field of horrors behind us!  Yet they were the very Boches who, an hour before, had been peppering us with those bullets.  One would never have imagined that we had so recently been enemies.  One of them asked for water to ‘drinken;’ so I let him have a drink from my water-bottle.  About half a dozen of them drank, and they appeared very grateful.

“Germans are not half so vile as they are painted....  They are only doing their bit for their Empire as we are for ours.  The pity of it is that destiny should have thrown us into conflict.  It is a great pity.  How fine it would be if we could let bygones be bygones, shake hands, and lead the world in peace and civilization side by side!  If we can fraternize so speedily on the battlefield, why cannot those who are not shooting each other also fraternize?  It is a cruel insult to humanity that this thing should go on.  War is hell, and the sooner some one arises who has the courage to stop it the better.  Somebody will have to take the lead some time.  I myself believe in peace after victory—­but we are not yet going the right way about achieving victory; and, unless Sir William Robertson speedily changes his plans, we might as well make peace.  This killing business is horrible.  The present policy of the General Staff is:  see which side can do the most killing.  A far wiser, and far more humane, policy would be to win it by strategy.  I believe in out-manoeuvring the enemy and taking as many prisoners as possible; make him evacuate territory or surrender by corps and armies; it can be done if we go the right way about it, but this bloodshed is barbarous.

“When we walked over Wieltje we found our once ‘strong point’ no longer existent.  The sandbags were scattered all over.  Yet in the mine below—­in the estam—­General Stockwell had his Headquarters.

“We were sent on from aid-post to aid-post.  They were all crowded with wounded.  The number of ‘walking cases’ was very large.  At Potijze we were again sent on.  So I walked into Ypres and passed the Cathedral and the Cloth Hall and reached the remains of the Prison which is now the central aid-post for Ypres.  There was a pleasant padre there; and he got me a refreshing cup of tea.  Then I went on again.  I got on a lorry and was taken to the mill at Vlamertinghe, which is known as the 2/1 Wessex Dressing Station.