“A loud bang in the German trenches indicated the moment of lighting, and the exit of Hans and Fritz to worlds less humorous.

“The genius in the British trenches went on with the preparation of the next surprise bomb—­against the arrival of Kurt and Karl....

“Hans, Fritz, Kurt, Karl, Michael and Wilhelm; it went for quite a long time before they grew suspicious....

“You once wrote that all fighting ought to be done nowadays by metal soldiers.  I perceive, my dear Daddy, that all real fighting is....”

Section 11

Not all Hugh’s letters were concerned with these grim technicalities.  It was not always that news and gossip came along; it was rare that a young man with a commission would condescend to talk shop to two young men without one; there were few newspapers and fewer maps, and even in France and within sound of guns, Hugh could presently find warfare almost as much a bore as it had been at times in England.  But his criticism of military methods died away.  “Things are done better out here,” he remarked, and “We’re nearer reality here.  I begin to respect my Captain.  Who is developing a sense of locality.  Happily for our prospects.”  And in another place he speculated in an oddly characteristic manner whether he was getting used to the army way, whether he was beginning to see the sense of the army way, or whether it really was that the army way braced up nearer and nearer to efficiency as it got nearer to the enemy.  “And here one hasn’t the haunting feeling that war is after all an hallucination.  It’s already common sense and the business of life....

“In England I always had a sneaking idea that I had ‘dressed up’ in my uniform....

“I never dreamt before I came here how much war is a business of waiting about and going through duties and exercises that were only too obviously a means of preventing our discovering just how much waiting about we were doing.  I suppose there is no great harm in describing the place I am in here; it’s a kind of scenery that is somehow all of a piece with the life we lead day by day.  It is a village that has been only partly smashed up; it has never been fought through, indeed the Germans were never within two miles of it, but it was shelled intermittently for months before we made our advance.  Almost all the houses are still standing, but there is not a window left with a square foot of glass in the place.  One or two houses have been burnt out, and one or two are just as though they had been kicked to pieces by a lunatic giant.  We sleep in batches of four or five on the floors of the rooms; there are very few inhabitants about, but the village inn still goes on.  It has one poor weary billiard-table, very small with very big balls, and the cues are without tops; it is The Amusement of the place.  Ortheris does miracles at it.  When he leaves the army he says he’s going to be a marker, ‘a b——­y