Fortunately, reprisals need not come from us.  Talk to Zouaves and Turcos and the French.  God help Germany if they ever penetrate to the Rhine.

A young man—­Mr. Shoppe—­is occupied in flying low over the gun that is bombarding Dunkirk in order to take a photograph of it.

It seems to me a great deal to ask of young men to give their lives when life must be so sweet, but no one seems to grudge their all.  Of some one hears touching and splendid stories; others, one knows, die all alone, gasping out their last breath painfully, with no one at hand to give them even a cup of water.  No one has a tale to tell of them.  God, perhaps, heard a last prayer or a last groan before Death came with its merciful hand and put an end to the intolerable pain.

How much can a man endure?  A Frenchman at the Zouave Poste au Secours looked calmly on while the remains of his arm were cut away the other night.  Many operations are performed without chloroform (because they take a shorter time) at the French hospital.

[Page Heading:  A HEAVENLY HOST]

I heard from R. to-day.  He says the story about Mons is true.  The English were retreating, and Kluck was following hard after them.  He wired to the Kaiser that he had “got the English,” but this is what men say happened.  A cloud came out of a clear day and stood between the two armies, and in the cloud men saw the chariots and horses of a heavenly host.  Kluck turned back from pursuing, and the English went on unharmed.

This may be true, or it may be the result of men’s fancy or of their imagination.  But there is one vision which no one can deny, and which each man who cares to look may see for himself.  It is the vision of what lies beyond sacrifice; and in that bright and heavenly atmosphere we shall see—­we may, indeed, see to-day—­the forms of those who have fallen.  They fight still for England, unharmed now and for ever more, warriors on the side of right, captains of the host which no man can number, champions of all that we hold good.  They are marching on ahead, and we hope to follow; and when we all meet, and the roll is called, we shall find them still cheery, I think, still unwavering, and answering to their good English names, which they carried unstained through a score of fights, at what price God and a few comrades know.

CHAPTER VI

LAST DAYS IN FLANDERS

19 May.—­In order to get material for my lecture to munition-workers I was very anxious to see more of the war for myself than is possible at a soup-kitchen, and I asked at the British Mission if I might be given permission to go into the British lines.  Major ——­ in giving me a flat refusal, was a little pompous and important I thought, and he said it was impossible to get near the British.

To-day I lunched on the barge with Miss Close, and we took her car and drove to Poperinghe.  I hardly like to write this even in a diary, I am so seldom naughty!  But I really did something very wrong for once.  And the amusing part of it was that military orders made going to Poperinghe so impossible that no one molested us!  We passed all the sentries with a flourish of our green papers, and drove on to the typhoid hospital with only a few Tommies gaping at us.