pyrotechnical and other devices; and varied bombs. An officer
unscrews a cap on a metal contraption, and throws it down, and it
begins to fizz away in the most disconcerting manner. And you feel
that all these shells, all these other devices, are simply straining to
go off. They are like things secretly and terribly alive, waiting the tiny
gesture which will set them free. Officers, handling destruction with
the nonchalance of a woman handling a hat, may say what they
like--the ammunition train is to my mind an unsafe neighbour. And
the thought of all the sheer brain-power which has gone to the
invention and perfecting of those propulsive and explosive
machines causes you to wonder whether you yourself possess a
brain at all.

You can find everything in the British lines except the British Army.
The same is to be said of the French lines; but the in discoverability
of the British Army is relatively much more striking, by reason of the
greater richness and complexity of the British auxiliary services. You
see soldiers--you see soldiers everywhere; but the immense
majority of them are obviously engaged in attending to the material
needs of other soldiers, which other soldiers, the fighters, you do not
see--or see only in tiny detachments or in single units.

Thus I went for a very long walk, up such hills and down such dales
as the country can show, tramping with a General through
exhausting communication-trenches, in order to discover two
soldiers, an officer and his man; and even they were not actual
fighters. The officer lived in a dug-out with a very fine telescope for
sole companion. I was told that none but the General commanding
had the right to take me to that dug-out. It contained the officer's
bed, the day's newspapers, the telescope, a few oddments hung on