XI  

  XII  

  

  

       THE TEST OF SCARLET     

  

  

       I     

 THE raid is over. The frenzied appeal of the Hun flares has died down. Flares are the deaf and dumb language of the Front. Sometimes they say, “We are advancing”; sometimes, “We are beaten back.” Most often they say, “We are in danger; call upon the artillery for help.”       Tonight they seemed to be crying out for mercy—speaking not to friends, but to us. We were silent as God, and now they too are silent.     

T

       In the welter of darkness one can still make out the exact location of the enemy’s front-line by the glow of his burning dug-outs. Our chaps set them on fire, standing in the doorways like avenging angels, and hurling down incendiary bombs as he tried to rush up the stairs. A horrid way to die, imprisoned underground in a raging furnace! Yet at this distance the destruction looks comfortable as the reflection of many camp-fires about which companions sit and warm their hands. The only companions in those trenches now are Corruption and his old friend Death.     

       I can see it all—the twisted terror of the bodies, the mangled redness of what once were men. I see these things too clearly—before they happen, while they are happening and when I ‘m not there. It is only when I am there that I do not see them, and they fail to impress me. It was so tonight as I crouched in my observation post, my telephonist beside me, waiting for the show to commence. As the second-hand ticked round to zero hour, I had an overpowering desire to delay the on-coming destruction. I peopled the enemy line with imaginary characters and built up stories about them. I pictured the homes they had left, the affections, the sweethearts, the little 

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