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Name: Class: Date:
Chapter 1 – Introduction to Systems Analysis and
Design
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Test Bank for Systems Analysis and Design 11th
Edition by Tilley
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True / False
1. Most firms give their IT budgets a low priority in good economic
times. a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
2. A mission-critical system is one that is unimportant to a company’s
operations. a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
3. In an information system, data is information that has been transformed into input that is valuable to
users. a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
4. Transaction processing (TP) systems are inefficient because they process a set of transaction-related
commands individually rather than as a group.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
5. In a knowledge management system, a knowledge base consists of logical rules that identify data patterns
and relationships.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False
6. Most large companies require systems that combine transaction processing, business support,
knowledge management, and user productivity features.
a. True
b. False

Name: Class: Date:
Design
ANSWER: True
7. Since middle managers focus on a longer time frame, they need less detailed information than top
managers, but somewhat more than supervisors who oversee day-to-day operations.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: False

Name: Class: Date:
Design
8. Many companies find that a trend called empowerment, which gives employees more responsibility and
accountability, improves employee motivation and increases customer satisfaction.
a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
9. Network administration includes hardware and software maintenance, support, and
security. a. True
b. False
ANSWER: True
10. The responsibilities of a systems analyst at a small firm are exactly the same as those at a large
corporation. a. True
b. False
ANSWER:
False
Modified True / False
11. System software consists of programs that support day-to-day business functions and provide users
with the information they require.
ANSWER: False -
Application
12. Joint application development (JAD) is like a compressed version of the entire development process.
ANSWER: False - Rapid application development, Rapid application development (RAD), RAD, RAD
(Rapid application development)
13. User support provides users with technical information, training, and productivity support.
ANSWER: True
Multiple Choice
14. refers to the combination of hardware, software, and services that people use to manage, communicate,
and share information.
a. Instructional
technology b. Information
technology c. Assistive
technology
d. Medical
technology
ANSWER: b

Name: Class: Date:
Design
15. A large concentration of servers working together is called a
_____. a. server window
b. server
application c.
server ranch
d. server farm
ANSWER: d
16. controls the flow of data, provides data security, and manages network
operations. a. Enterprise software
b. System software
c. Application
software d. Legacy
software
ANSWER: b
17. Examples of company-wide applications, called , include order processing systems, payroll systems,
and company communications networks.
a. enterprise applications
b. network operating systems (NOS)
c. operating
applications d. legacy
systems
ANSWER: a
18. When planning an information system, a company must consider how a new system will interface with older
systems, which are called .
a. enterprise applications
b. network operating systems (NOS)
c. operating
applications d. legacy
systems
ANSWER: d
19. Internet-based commerce is called and includes two main sectors: B2C (business-to-consumer) and
B2B (business-to-business).
a. electronic commerce
b. network-oriented
commerce c. virtual trading
d. online trading

Name: Class: Date:
Design
ANSWER: a

Name: Class: Date:
Design
20. Which of the following is one of the main sectors of ecommerce?
a. C2C (consumer-to-
consumer) b. B2C (business-
to-consumer) c. C2B
(consumer-to-business)
d. BPM (business process
model)
ANSWER: b
21. enabled computer-to-computer transfer of data between companies, usually over private
telecommunications networks.
a. Electronic data interchange
(EDI)
b. Radio frequency identification
(RFID)
c. Enterprise resource planning
(ERP)
d. Object-oriented (O-O)
analysis
ANSWER: a
22. A is an overview that describes a company’s overall functions, processes, organization, products,
services, customers, suppliers, competitors, constraints, and future direction.
a. business matrix
b. business profile
c. business index
d. business
glossary
ANSWER: b
23. A _____ graphically displays one or more business processes, such as handling an airline reservation, filling a
product order, or updating a customer account.
a. business matrix model (BMM)
b. business process model (BPM)
c. business indexing model (BIM)
d. business strategic model
(BSM)
ANSWER: b
24. For complex models, analysts can choose computer-based modeling tools that use , which includes
standard shapes and symbols to represent events, processes, workflows, and more.

Name: Class: Date:
Design
a. electronic data interchange
(EDI)
b. joint application development
(JAD)
c. business process modeling notation
(BPMN)
d. rapid application development
(RAD)
ANSWER: c

Name: Class: Date:
Design
25. Transaction processing (TP) systems .
a. provide job-related information to users at all levels of a company
b. simulate human reasoning by combining a knowledge base and inference rules that determine how
the knowledge is applied
c. process data generated by day-to-day business operations
d. include email, voice mail, fax, video conferencing, word processing, automated calendars,
database management, spreadsheets, and integrated mobile computing systems
ANSWER: c
26. Business support systems .
a. provide job-related information support to users at all levels of a company
d. include email, voice mail, fax, video conferencing, word processing, automated calendars,
database management, spreadsheets, and integrated mobile computing systems
ANSWER: a
27. technology uses high-frequency radio waves to track physical
objects. a. Redundant array of independent disks (RAID)
b. Radio frequency identification (RFID)
c. Enterprise resource planning (ERP)
d. Management information system (MIS)
ANSWER: b
28. Knowledge management systems use a large database called a(n) that allows users to find
information by entering keywords or questions in normal English phrases.
a. inference
engine b.
knowledge base
c. knowledge database management
system d. inference manager
ANSWER: b
29. User productivity systems .
a. provide job-related information to users at all levels of a company
d. include groupware programs that enable users to share data, collaborate on projects, and work in teams

Name: Class: Date:
Design
ANSWER: d

Name: Class: Date:
Design
30. In a typical organizational model, top managers .
a. develop long-range plans, called strategic plans, which define a company’s overall mission and
goals b. provide direction, necessary resources, and performance feedback to supervisors and
team leaders
c. oversee operation employees and carry out day-to-day functions, coordinating operational tasks and
people d. include users who rely on transaction processing (TP) systems to enter and receive the data
they need to
perform their jobs
ANSWER: a
31. In a typical company organizational model, middle managers .
a. develop long-range plans, called strategic plans, which define the company’s overall mission and
goals b. provide direction, necessary resources, and performance feedback to supervisors and team
leaders
c. oversee operation employees and carry out day-to-day functions, coordinating operational tasks and
people d. include users who rely on transaction processing (TP) systems to enter and receive the data
they need to
perform their jobs
ANSWER: b
32. is a systems development technique that produces a graphical representation of a concept or process
that systems developers can analyze, test, and modify.
a. Prototyping
b. Rapid application
development c. Scrum
d. Modeling
ANSWER: d
33. A describes the information that a system must
provide. a. process model
b. data model
c. business
model d.
network model
ANSWER: c
34. is a systems development technique that tests system concepts and provides an opportunity to examine
input, output, and user interfaces before final decisions are made.
a. Scrum

Name: Class: Date:
Design
b.
Prototyping
c. Modeling
d. Rapid application development
ANSWER: b

Name: Class: Date:
Design
35. Identify a method of developing systems that is well-suited to traditional project management tools and
techniques. a. Object-oriented analysis
b. Adaptive method
c. Structured analysis
ANSWER: c
36. The method of developing systems produces code that is modular and
reusable. a. object-oriented analysis
b. adaptive
c. structured analysis
ANSWER: a
37. Which of the following methods of system development stresses intense team-based effort and reflects a
set of community-based values?
a. Object-oriented
analysis b. Agile method
c. Structured analysis
ANSWER: b
38. One of the disadvantages of methods of system development is that the overall project might be
subject to scope change as user requirements change.
a. object-oriented
analysis b. agile
c. structured analysis
ANSWER: b
39. Structured analysis is a traditional systems development technique that uses a series of phases, called the
, to plan, analyze, design, implement, and support an information system.
a. object-oriented (O-O) analysis
b. systems development life cycle (SDLC)
c. transaction processing (TP) system
d. enterprise resource planning system (ERP)
ANSWER: b

Name: Class: Date:
Design
40. Structured analysis is called a(n) technique because it focuses on processes that transform data into
useful information.
a. iterative
b. process-
centered c.
inferred
d. model-specific
ANSWER: b
41. A(n) shows the data that flows in and out of system
processes. a. process model
b. object model
c. business
model d.
network model
ANSWER: a
42. A(n) uses various symbols and shapes to represent data flow, processing, and
storage. a. process flow diagram
b. object model
c. data flow
diagram d. network
model
ANSWER: c
43. In a(n) model, the result of each phase is called a deliverable, which flows into the next
phase. a. interactive
b. iterative
c.
waterfall
d. spiral
ANSWER: c
44. The usually begins with a formal request to the IT department, called a systems request, which
describes problems or desired changes in an information system or a business process.
a. systems design phase
b. systems planning phase
c. systems support and security
phase d. systems analysis phase

Name: Class: Date:
Design
ANSWER: b

Name: Class: Date:
Design
45. In a systems development life cycle (SDLC) model, the purpose of the is to build a logical model of the
new system.
a. systems analysis phase
b. systems implementation
phase c. systems design phase
d. systems support and security phase
ANSWER: a
46. In a systems development life cycle (SDLC) model, the purpose of the is to create a physical model that
will satisfy all documented requirements for the system.
a. systems implementation
phase b. systems planning
phase
c. systems analysis
phase d. systems design
phase
ANSWER: d
47. During the of the systems development life cycle (SDLC), a new system is
constructed. a. systems planning phase
b. systems support and security
phase c. systems design phase
d. systems implementation phase
ANSWER: d
48. The systems implementation phase of the systems development life cycle (SDLC) includes an assessment, called
a
, to determine whether the system operates properly and if costs and benefits are within
expectation. a. systems estimation
b. systems
verification c.
systems validation
d. systems evaluation
ANSWER: d
49. During the of the systems development life cycle (SDLC), the IT staff maintains, enhances, and
protects the system.
a. systems support and security
phase b. systems implementation
phase

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The sky was faintly tinged with a grey dawn when our offensive
opened. Suddenly the intense and almost spiritual quiet was
changed into frantic chaos. The sky was vividly lit with every kind of
ingeniously contrived destruction. In addition to his other shells, the
Hun flung back gas and liquid fire. It looked as though no infantry
could live in it. Within an hour of the offensive starting, each officer
crept out of his trench and went forward to reconnoitre the ground,
taking with him one N.C.O. and a runner. My runner carried with him
a lot of stakes with white rags attached for marking out our route.
We wound our way carefully through the shells until we reached our
own Front line. Here the Hun barrage was falling briskly, and gas-
shells were coming over to beat the band. The bursting of explosives
was for all the world like corn popping in a pan. We ran across what
had been No Man's Land and entered the Hun wire. My job was to
build from here to his support-trenches. His frontline trench was
piled high with dead. The whole spectacle was unreal as something
that had been staged; the corpses looked like wax-works. One didn't
have time to observe much, for flames seemed to be going off
beneath one's feet almost every second, and it seemed marvellous
that we contrived to live where there was so much death. As we
went farther back we began to find our own khaki-clad dead. I don't
think the Huns had got them; it was our own barrage, which they
had followed too quickly in the eagerness of the attack. Then we
came to where the liquid fire had descended, for the poor fellows
had thrown themselves into the pools in the shell-holes and only the
faces and arms were sticking out. Then I recognised the support-
trench, which was the end of my journey, and planted my Union
Jack as a signal for the other officers who were to build ahead of
me. With my runner and N.C.O. I started to reconnoitre my road
back, planting my stakes to mark the route. When I was again at
what had been our Front line, I sent my runner back to guide in my
volunteers. What a day it was! For a good part of the time the men
had to dig, wearing their gas-helmets. You never saw such a mess—
sleet driving in our faces, the ground hissing and boiling as shells
descended, dead men everywhere, the wounded crawling
desperately, dragging themselves to safety. I saw sights of pity and

A
bravery that it is best not to mention, and all the time my brave
chaps dug on, making the road for the guns. Soon through the
smoke grey-clad figures came in tottering droves, scorched,
battered, absolutely stunned. They looked more like beasts in their
pathetic dumbness. One hardly recognized them as enemies. All day
we worked, not stopping to eat, and by the evening we saw the first
of our guns advancing. It's a great game, this war, and searches the
soul out. That night I slept in the mud, clothes and all, the
dreamless sleep of the dog-tired.
Note.—Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson was wounded in the right
arm at Vimy on 26th June. He was evacuated with a serious case of
gas-gangrene, and after being in, first, a Casualty Clearing Hospital
and then a Base Hospital, was sent back to England on 8th July,
where he was in a hospital at Wandsworth, London, till the end of
August. His arm was in such a serious condition that at first it was
thought necessary to amputate it. Fortunately after days of
ceaseless care this was avoided.
XI
Hospital
London July 8, 1917
fortnight ago to-day I got wounded. The place was stitched up
and didn't look bad enough to go out with. Three days later
there was an attack and I was to be observer. My arm got
poisoned while I was on the job, and when I came back I was sent
out. Blood-poisoning started, and they had to operate three times;
for a little while there was a talk of amputation. But you're not to
worry at all about me now, for I'm getting on splendidly and there's
no cause for anxiety. They tell me it will take about two months
before I get the full use of my arm back. Reggie was in London on
leave and got his leave extended—I missed him by an hour. J. L. was
round to see me this morning and is cabling to you. I don't think you

I
ought to cross while the risk is so great and there's a difficulty in
obtaining passports—though you know how I'd love to have you.
I've missed all my letters for the past fortnight. Please excuse me,
for my arm gets very tired, and I'm not supposed to use it.
XII
London July 25, 1917
'm going on all right, but can't use my arm much for writing just
at present, so you won't mind short letters, will you? I got the
first written by you since I was hurt, yesterday. I am so glad
that America is so patriotic.
Yesterday, to my great surprise, I was called up by the High
Commissioner of Canada, and on going to see him found he wanted
me to start at once on preparing an important government
statement. Since I'm forbidden to use my arm for writing, I'm to
have a stenographer and dictate my stuff after doing the
interviewing. This job is only temporary. And I think it is possible
after I have finished it, if they refuse to allow me to return to the
Front at once, that I may get a leave to America. I wouldn't want to
get a long one, as I am so anxious to get back to France.
Don't worry at all about me. I feel quite well now, and go about
with my arm in a sling and am allowed out of hospital to do this
work all day. As soon as my ann grows stronger I'll write you a good
long letter, but while it is as it is at present I have to restrict myself
to bare essentials.
Oh, did I tell you? I wouldn't have missed coming through London
on a stretcher for pounds. The flower-girls climbed into the
ambulance and showered us with roses. All the way as we passed
people waved and shouted. It was a kind of royal procession, and,
like a baby, I cried.
XIII

I
London August 3,1917
've just come back to my office in Oxford Circus from lunching at
the Rendezvous. Next to my table during lunch were two typical
Wardour Street dealers, rubbing their hands and chortling over a
cheap buy.
I wonder how long this different way of life is going to last.
Someone will snap his fingers and heigh-ho, presto! I shall be back
in France. This little taste of the old life gives me a very vivid idea of
the sheer glee with which I shall greet the end of the war. How jolly
comfortable it will be to be your own master—not that one ever is
his own master while there are other people to live for. But I mean,
what an extraordinary miracle it will seem to be allowed to reckon
one's life in years and not in weeks—to be able to look forward and
plan and build. And yet—this is a confession—I can see myself
getting up from my easy-chair and going out again quite gladly
directly there is another war, if my help is needed. There was a time,
long ago, when I used to regard a soldier with horror, and wondered
how decent folk could admire him; the red of his coat always
seemed to me the blood-red of murder. But it isn't the killing that
counts—you find that out when you've become a soldier; it's the
power to endure and walk bravely, and the opportunity for dying in a
noble way. One doesn't hate his enemy if he's a good soldier, and
doesn't even want to kill him from any personal motive—he may
even regret killing him while in the act. I think it's just this attitude
that makes our Canadians so terrible—they kill from principle and
not from malice.
I'm seeing all my old friends again, lunching with one and dining
with another, and have been to some matinees. But I can go to no
evening performances, because I have to be in the hospital at 10
p.m.
I really am hoping to get a week in New York after this piece of
work is done, after which back to France till the war is ended.
XIV

I
London August 30, 1917
've just left hospital and am staying at this hotel. You keep
saying in your letters that you never heard how I got my injury.
I described it—but that letter must have gone astray. On 26th
June I was wounded not by a shell, but by a piece of an iron
chimney which was knocked down on to my right arm. I had it sewn
up and for two days it was all right. The third I went up for an attack
and it started to swell—by the time I came back I had gas-gangrene.
The arm is better now and I'm on sick leave, though still working.
They've made me an offer of a job here in London, but I should
break my heart if I could not go back to the Front. But I think when
I've finished here that I may get a special leave, with permission to
call in at New York. Wouldn't that be grand?
I don't want to raise your hopes too high, but it seems extremely
likely that I shall see you shortly. I was to-day before my medical
board, and they gave me two months' home service. I have been
promised that as soon as a new Canadian ruling on home leave is
confirmed, my application for leave will go through.
If that happens, I shall cable you at once that I am coming. It
doesn't seem at all possible or true that this can be so, and I'm
making myself no promises till I'm really on the boat. It would be
better that you should not, also. I'm taking a gamble and am going
to order a new tunic for the occasion this afternoon.
It's a golden afternoon outside—the kind that turns the leaves red
at Kootenay, with the tang of iced wine in the air. The sound of
London is like the tumming of a thousand banjos. It's good to be
alive, and very wonderful after all that has happened.
Note.—Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson arrived at Quebec on 26th
September and came home on the following day. He was at home
for a month. During that time he spoke in public on several
occasions, and wrote the book which was brought out the following
spring, entitled “The Glory of the Trenches.”
XIV

H
Somewhere on the Atlantic November 11, 1917
ere's the first letter since I left New York, coming to you. It's
seven in the morning; I'm lying in my bunk, expecting any
minute to be called to my bath.
So far it's been a pleasant voyage, with rolling seas and no
submarines. There are scarcely a hundred passengers, of whom only
four are ladies, in the first class. The men are Government officials,
Army and Navy officers going on Cook's Tours, and Naval attachés.
The American naval men are an especially fine type. We do all the
usual things—play cards, deck-golf and sleep immoderately, but
always at the wrong times.
I'm going back for the second time, and going back in the most
placid frame of mind. I compare this trip with my first trip over as a
soldier. I was awfully anxious then, and kept saying good-bye to
things for the last time. Now I live day by day in a manner which is
so take-it-for-granted as to be almost commonplace. I've locked my
imagination away in some garret of my mind and the house of my
thoughts is very quiet.
What bricks you all were in the parting—there wasn't any whining
—you were a real soldier's family, and I felt proud of you. It was just
a kind of “Good luck, old chap”—with all the rest of the speaking left
to the eyes and hands. That's the way it should be in a world that's
so full of surprises.
This trip has done a tremendous lot for me—I shall always know
now that the trenches are not the whole of the horizon. Before,
when I landed in France, it seemed as though a sound-and sight-
proof curtain had dropped behind and everything I had known and
loved was at an end. One collects a little bit of shrapnel and, heigho,
presto! one's home again. On my second trip, the war won't seem
such a world without end.
To-night I have to pack—that's wonderful, too. I'm wondering
whether Reggie will be on the station. I shall send a telegram to
warn him.

T
XVI
The Ritz Hotel, London November 11, 1917
his was the date at which I had to report back at
Headquarters. Actually I reported back yesterday, because to-
day is Sunday. I found that I had been detailed not for France,
but for work under the High Commissioner. You know what such
news means to me. I at once did my best to fight the order, but was
told that it was a military order in which I had no choice. I start work
to-morrow at Oxford Circus House, but shall put in an urgent request
to go to France.-I shall at least try to get some limitations to the
period of my stay in England. Even when I was in hospital I used to
feel that the last stretcher-case out of the fighting was someone to
be worshipped—he was nearer to the sacrifice than I. And now I'm
not to go back for months, perhaps—I shall eat my heart out in
England.
Reggie fell asleep and has just wakened. He was dreaming, he
said, the best dream in the world. It was that he might land back in
New York on 20th December and spend Christmas with you—then
go up to Kootenay to get a glimpse of his little green home among
the snow and apple trees and—— “And then what?”
I asked. He made a wry face. “Go back to hunting submarines,” he
said quickly. Go back! We all want to go back. Why? Because it's so
easy to find reasons for not going back probably. I shall raise heaven
and earth to be sent back—and you'll be glad of it.
There's something that I shouldn't tell you were I going back to-
morrow. Last week I met one of my gunners on leave. He was
standing on the island in Piccadilly Circus. I learnt from him that
every officer who was with me at the battery when I was wounded
has since been wiped out. Even some who joined since have been
done for. Three have been killed, the rest wounded, gassed, and the
major has gone out with concussion. Among the killed is poor S., the
one who was my best friend in France, You remember he had a
young wife, and his first baby was born in February. He used to carry

the list of all the people I wanted written to if I were killed, and I
had promised to do the same for him. In addition to the officers,
many of the men whom I admired have “gone west.” All this was
told me casually in the heart of London's pleasure, with the taxis and
buses streaming by.
A few days ago a pitiful derelict of the streets crossed my path. I'd
been dining out in the West End with L. and P. and was on my way
back, when a girl stopped me. She stopped me for the usual reason,
and I suppose I refused her rudely. The next thing I knew she was
crying. She said she had been walking for twelve hours, and was
cold and tired, and ready to fall from weariness. It was very late,
and I scarcely knew where to take her, but we found a little French
restaurant open in Gerrard Street. On coming into the light, I
discovered that she had a little toy dog under her arm, just as tired
of life as herself. It was significant that she attended to the dog's
before her own needs. We had to tempt it with milk before it would
eat—then she set to work herself ravenously. I learnt her story by
bits. She was a discharged munition worker, had strained herself
lifting shells, and hadn't the brains or strength for anything but the
streets. When she left the restaurant the lap-dog was again tucked
beneath her arm. It was nearly midnight when she disappeared in
the raw chilliness of the scant electric light. People die worse deaths
than on battle-fields.
Wednesday.—I've been working for the last three days at the
Minister's, and still have no inkling of what is to happen to me. My
major walked in to-day; he wants me to wait till his sick-leave is
over, after which we can return together. He'll put in a strong
personal request for me to be allowed to return. He got concussion
of the brain eight weeks ago through a shell bursting in his dug-out.
S. was wounded at the same time, but didn't go out till next day. He
had got one hundred yards from the battery when he and his
batman were killed instantly by the same shell.
Reggie wasn't in town when I arrived. He didn't meet me till
Friday. What with playing with him and working here I don't get
much time for writing. But you'll hear from me again quite soon.

T
XVII
The Ritz, London November 15, 1917
his hanging round London seems a very poor way to help win
a war. I couldn't stand very much of it, however invaluable
they pretended I was, when my pals are dying out there. Poor
old S.! He's in my thoughts every hour of the day. He was always
getting new photos of his little daughter. He longed for a Blighty that
he might see her again. He was wounded, but stopped on duty for
two days. At last, only one hundred yards down the trench on his
way to the dressing-station a shell caught him. He was dead in an
instant. Before the Vimy show two of our chaps in the mess had
peculiar dreams: one saw D.'. grave and the other S.'.. Both S. and
D. are dead. The effect that all this has on me is not what might be
expected—makes me the more anxious to get back. I hate to think
that others are going sleepless and cold and are in danger, and that
I am not there. When the memory comes at meal-times I feel like
leaving the table.
It was ripping to hear from you last night. Your letter greeted me
as I returned from the theatre. We'd been out with my major. At the
theatre we picked up with a plucky chap, named K., who belonged
to the same battery as B., to whom, you remember, I was carrying a
present from some girl in New York. The present which she was so
keen should reach him by Christmas turned out to be a neck-tie
which she had knitted for him. On asking K., I found out that B. was
killed on October 31st. It's the same story all the time so far as the
18-pounders are concerned.
When Reggie leaves me I'm going to start on another book, Out
to Win, which is to be an interpretation for England of the new spirit
which is animating America, and a plea for a closer sense of kinship
between my two nations.
Don't worry about me, you'll get a cabled warning before I go to
France. My major expects to go back in a month or two, and we've

Y
arranged to return together if possible. But you needn't get worried
—I'm afraid I shall probably spend Christmas in London.
XVIII
The Ritz, London November 17, 1917
our minds can be at rest as regards my safety for a few weeks
at least. I've been collared for fair, but I think I'll manage to
get free again presently. I suppose you'll say that I'm a donkey
to want so much to get back to the Front; perhaps I am—the war
will last quite long enough for every man in khaki to get very much
more of it than he can comfortably stomach. The proper soldierly
attitude is to take every respite as it turns up and be grateful for it.
But then I'm not a professional soldier. I think in saying that I've laid
my finger on the entire reason for the splendour of our troops—that
they're not professional soldiers, but civilian idealists. Your
professional soldier isn't particularly keen on death—his game is to
live that he may fight another day. Our game is to fight and fight
and fight so long as we have an ounce of strength left. My major
and myself are all that are left of the officers in my battery. A great
many of our best men are gone. They need us back to help them
out.
Here's a story of stories—one which answers all the questions one
hears asked as to whether the Army doesn't lower a man's morals
and turn saints into blackguards.
When we were on the Somme, a batch of very worthless-
appearing remounts arrived at our wagon-lines direct from England.
When they were paraded before us, they made the rottenest
impression—they looked like molly-coddles whom the Army had
cowed. Among them was a particularly inoffensive-looking young
man who had been a dental student, whom, if the Huns could have
seen him as a sample of the kind of reinforcements we were getting,
they would certainly have taken new courage to win the war. All the
officers growled and prayed God for a consignment of the old rough-

and-tumble knockabout chaps who came out of gaols, from under
freight-trains, and from lumber-camps to die like gentlemen—the
only gentlemanly thing some of them ever did, I expect—with the
Canadian First Contingent.
A few weeks later we sent back to the wagonlines for a servant to
be sent up to the guns, two of our batmen having been killed and a
third having been returned to duty. The wagon-line officer sent us
up this fellow with the following note: “I'm sending you X. He's the
most useless chap I have—not bad, but a ninny. I hope he'll suit
you.” He didn't. He could never carry out an order correctly, and
seemed scared stiff: by any N.C.O. or officer. We got rid of him
promptly. When he returned to the wagon-lines, he was put on to all
the fatigues and dirty jobs.
The first time we got any hint that the chap had guts was when
we were out at rest at Christmas. He'd been shifted from one section
to another, because no one wanted him.. Each new Number One as
he received him put him on to his worst horses, so as to get rid of
him the more quickly. The chap was grooming a very ticklish mare,
when she up with her hind-legs and caught him in the chest,
throwing him about twenty yards into the mud. He lay stunned for a
full minute; we thought he was done. Then, in a dazed kind of way,
he got upon his feet. He was told he could fall out, but he insisted
upon finishing the grooming of his horse. When the stable parade
was dismissed, much against his will he was sent to be inspected by
the Brigade doctor.
The doctor looked him over and said, “I ought to send you out to
a hospital, but I'll see how you are to-morrow. You must go back to
your billets and keep quiet. The kick has chipped the point of your
breast-bone.”
“It didn't,” said Driver X., “and I'm not going to lie down.”
The doctor, who is very small, looked as much like the Last
Judgment as his size would allow. “You'll do what you're told,” he
said sharply. “You'll find yourself up for office if you speak to me like

that. If I told you that both your legs were broken, they would be
broken. You don't know very much about the Army, my lad.”
“But my breast-bone isn't chipped,” he insisted. Contrary to orders
he was out on the afternoon parade and was up to morning stables
next day at six o'clock. When strafed for his disobedience, he looked
mild and inoffensive and obstinate. He refused to be considered, and
won out. You can punish chaps for things like that; but you don't.
The next thing we noticed about him was that he was learning to
swear. Then he began to look rough, so that no one would have
guessed that he came from a social grade different from that of the
other men. And this was the stage he had arrived at when I got
wounded last summer and left the battery. The story of his further
progress was completed for me this week when I met my major in
town.
“Who's the latest hero, do you think?", he questioned. “You'd
never guess—the dental student. He did one of the most splendid
bits of work that was ever done by an Artillery driver.”
Here's what he did. He was sent along a heavily shelled road at
nightfall to collect material from blown-in dug-outs for building our
new battery position. He was wheel-driver on a G.S. wagon which
had three teams hooked into it. There was a party of men with him
to scout up the material and an N.C.O. in charge. As they were
halted, backed up against an embankment, a shell landed plumb
into the wagon, crippling it badly, wounding all the horses and every
man except the ex-dental student. The teams bolted, and it was
mainly due to the efforts of the wheel-driver that the stampede was
checked. He must have used quite a lot of language which really
polite people would not have approved. He then bound up all the
wounds of his comrades—there was no one to help him—and took
them back to the field dressing-station two at a time, mounted on
two of the least wounded horses. When he had carried them all to
safety, he removed their puttees and went back alone along the
shelled road to the wounded horses and used the puttees to stop
their flow of blood. He managed to get the wagon clear, so that it
could be pulled. He tied four of the horses on behind; hooked in the

two that were strongest, and brought the lot back to the wagonlines
single-handed.
And here's the end of the story. The O.C. put in a strong
recommendation that he be decorated for his humanity and courage.
The award came through in the record time of fourteen days, with
about a yard of Military Medal ribbon and congratulations from high
officers all along the line. The morning of the day it came through
thieving had been discovered in the battery, and a warning had been
read out that the culprit was suspected, and that it would go hard
with him when he was arrested. The decoration was received in the
afternoon while harness-cleaning was in progress. Without loss of
time the O.C. went out, a very stern look on his face, and had the
battery formed up in a hollow square. There was only one thought in
the men's heads—that the thief had been found. There was a kind of
“Is it I” look in their faces. Without explanation, the O.C. called upon
the ex-dental student to fall out. He fell out with his knees knocking
and his chin wobbling, looking quite the guilty party. Then the O.C.
commenced to read all the praise from officers at Brigade, Division,
Corps, Army, of the gallant wheel-driver who had not only risked his
life to save his pals, but had even had the fineness of forethought to
bind up the horses' wounds with the puttees. Then came the yard of
Military Medal ribbon, a piece of which was snipped off and pinned
on to the lad's worn tunic. The battery yelled itself crimson. The
dental student had learnt to swear, but he'd won his spurs. He's
been promoted to the most dangerous and coveted job for a gunner
or driver in the artillery; he's been put on to the B.C. party, which
has to go forward into all the warm spots to observe the enemy and
to lay in wire with the infantry when a “show” is in progress. Can
you wonder that I get weary of seeing the London buses trundle
along the well-swept asphalt of Oxford Street and long to take my
chance once more with such chaps?
XIX
London

H
November 29, 1917
ere's such a November London day as no American ever
imagines. A feeling of spring and greenness is in the air, and
a glint of subdued gold. This morning as I came across
Battersea Bridge it seemed as though war could not be—that, at
worst, it was only an incident. The river lay below me so old and
good-humoured—in front Cheyne Walk comfortably ancient and
asleep. Through the chimneys and spires of the distant city blue
scarfs of mist twisted and floated. Everything looked very happy.
Boys—juvenile cannon-fodder—went whistling along the streets;
housemaids leant shyly out of upstairs windows, shaking dusters to
attract their attention. In the square by the Chelsea Pensioners,
soldiers, all spit and polish, were going through their foot-drill; they
didn't look too earnest about it—not at all as if in two months they
would be in the trenches. It's the same with the men on leave—they
live their fourteen days with cheery common sense as though they
were going to live for ever. It's impossible, even when you meet the
wounded, to discover any signs of tragedy in London. The war is
referred to as “good old war,” “a bean-feast,” “a pretty little scrap,”
but never as an undertaking of blood and torture. Last night there
was strong moonlight, very favourable to an air raid. When I bought
my paper this morning, the fat woman, all burst out and tied in at
the most unexpected places, remarked to me with an air of
disappointment: “They fergot h'us.”
“Who forgot us?” I asked.
“The bloomin' 'Uns. I wus h'expecting them lawst night.”
She spoke as though she'd had tea ready and the kettle boiling for
a dear friend who had mis-remembered his engagement. England
has set out to behave as if there was no death; she's jolly nearly
succeeded in eliminating it from her thoughts. She's learnt the
lesson of the chaps in the front-line trenches, and she's like a
mother—like our mother—who has sons at the war—she's going to
keep on smiling so as not to let her fellows down.

All the streets are full of girls in khaki—girls with the neatest,
trimmest little ankles. The smartest of all are the Flying Corps girls,
many of whom drive the army cars in the most daring manner. When
you think of what they are and were, the war hasn't done so badly
for them. They were purposeless before. Their whole aim was to get
married. They felt that they weren't wanted in the world. They broke
windows with Mother Pankhurst. Now they've learnt discipline and
duty and courage. They'd man the trenches if we'd let them. They
used to sneer at our sex; whether they married or remained single,
quite a number of them became man-haters. But now—that kind of
civil war is ended. Ask the young subaltern back on leave how much
he is disliked by the girls. Babies and home have become the
fashion. I received quite a shock last Sunday when I was saluted by
one of these girls—saluted in a perfectly correct and soldierly
fashion. The idea is right; if they outwardly acknowledge that they
are a part of the Army, military discipline becomes their protection.
But what a queer, changed world from the world of sloppy blouses,
cheap and much-too-frequent jewellery, and silly sentimental ogling!
England's become more alert and forthright; despite the war, she's
happier. This isn't meant for a glorification of war; it's simply a
statement of fact. The time had to come when women would
become men; they've become men in this most noble and womanly
fashion—through service. They're doing men's jobs with women's
alacrity.
There is only one thing that will keep me from rejoining my
battery in January, and that's this American book. We have come to
the conclusion that to complete the picture of American
determination to win out, I ought to go on a tour of inspection in
France. The Government is interested in the book for propaganda
work. The extreme worthwhileness of such an undertaking would
reconcile me to a postponement of my return to the Front—nothing
else will. All the papers here are full of the details of the advance at
Cambrai. I want to be “out there” so badly. What does it matter that
there's mud in the trenches, and death round every traverse, and
danger in each step? It's the hour of glorious life I long for; for such

I
an hour I would exchange all the sheeted beds and running bath-
taps, not to mention the æons of Cathay. I can see those gunners
forcing up their guns through the mire, and can hear the machine
guns clicking away like infuriated typewriters. The whole gigantic
pageant of death and endeavour moves before me—and I'm sick of
clubs and safety. People say to me, “You're of more use here—you
can serve your country better by being in England.” But when chaps
are dying I want to take my chance with them. Don't be afraid I'll be
kept here. I won't. I didn't know till I was held back against my will
what a grip that curious existence at the Front had got on me. It
isn't the horror one remembers—it's the exhilaration of the glory.
Cheer up, I'll be home some Christmas to fill your Christmas
stocking. It won't be this Christmas—perhaps not the next; but
perhaps the next after that. The young gentlemen from the Navy will
be there too to help me. It's a promise.
I was present at the opening of the American Officers' Club by the
Duke of Connaught. This club is the private house of Lord
Leconfield. Other people have presented furniture, pictures, and
money. It costs an American officer next to nothing, and is the best
attempt that has been made to give a welcome to the U.S.A. in
London. It's the most luxurious club in the West End at present.
XX
London
December 10, 1917
got a letter from the Foreign Office, asking me to go back to
America to do writing and lecturing for the British Mission. I'm
sure you'll appreciate why I refused it, and be glad. I couldn't
come back to U.S.A. to talk about nobilities when their sons and
brothers are getting their first baptism of fire in the trenches. If I'd
got anything worth saying I ought to be out there in the mud—
saying it in deeds. But I've told Colonel B. that if ever I come out

again wounded I will join the British Mission for a time. So now you
have something to look forward to.
I hear though that permission will probably be granted to me
within the next few days to start for France to go through the
American lines and activities. You can guess how interesting that will
be to me. I only hope they have a fight on while I'm in the American
lines. I suppose the tour will take me the best part of a month, so I'll
be away from England for Christmas. I rather hope I'll be in Paris—
ever since reading Trilby I've longed to go to the Madeleine for Noël
—which reminds me that I must get Trilby to read on the journey.
It's rather a romantic life that I'm having nowadays, don't you think?
I romp all over the globe and, in the intervals, have a crack at the
Germans.
After I have finished writing this book on the American activities in
France I shan't be content a moment till I've rejoined my battery. I
feel a terrible shyster stopping away from the fighting a day longer
than can be helped. This book, which I intend to be a spiritual
interpretation of the soul of America, ought to do good to Anglo-
American relations; so it seems of sufficiently vital importance. I
can't think of anything that would do more to justify the blotting out
of so many young lives than that, when the war is ended, England
and America should have reason to forget the last hundred and
thirty years of history, joining hands in a worldwide Anglo-Saxon
alliance against the future murdering of nations. If I can contribute
anything towards bringing that about, the missing of two months in
the trenches will be worth it.
I went to a “good luck” dinner the other night, which we gave to
my major on the occasion of his setting sail for Canada. Two others
of the officers who used to be with me in the battery are to be on
the same ship. A year ago in the Somme we used to pray for a
Blighty—to-day, every officer in our mess has either got a Blighty or
is dead. It gives one some idea of the brevity of our glory.
You'd love the West End shops were you here. I've just drawn
down my blinds on Oxford Street; I walked back by way of Regent
Street after lunch—all the windows are gay and full. Men in khaki are

I
punting their girls through the crowds, doing their Christmas
shopping. You can see the excited faces of little children everywhere.
There doesn't seem to be much hint of war. One wonders whether
people are brave to smile so much or only careless. You hear of
tremendous lists of casualties, but there are just as many men. It
looks as though we had man-power and resources to carry on the
war interminably. There's only one class of person who is fed-up—
and that's the person who has done least sacrificing. The person
who has done none at all is a nervous wreck and can't stand the
strain much longer. But ask the fighting men—they're perfectly
happy and contented. Curious! When you've given everything, you
can always give some more.
This may reach you before Christmas, though I doubt it. If it does,
be as merry as we shall be, though absent.
XXI
London
December 10, 1917
hope you feel as I do about my refusal of Colonel B.'. offer to
send me back to America on the British Mission. I was also
approached to-day to do press work for the Canadians. It seems
as though everyone was conspiring to throw tempting plums in my
way to keep me from returning to the Front. I don't know that I'm
much good as a soldier; probably I'm very much better as a writer;
but it's as though my soul, my decency, my honour were at stake—I
must get back to the Front. The war is going to be won by men who
go back to the trenches in the face of reason and common sense. If
I had a leg off I should try for the Flying Corps. I may be a fool in
the Front line, but I won't be finished as a fighting man till I'm done.
They can keep all their cushy jobs for other chaps—I want the mud
and the pounding of the guns. It doesn't really matter if one does
get killed, provided he's set a good example. Do you remember that
sermon we heard Dr. Jowett give about St. Paul at Lystra, going back

after they had stoned him? “Back to the stones”—that expresses me
exactly. I hate shell-fire and discomfort and death as much as any
other man. But I'd rather lose everything than have to say good-bye
to my standard of heroism. I don't want to kill Huns particularly, but
I do want to prove to them that we're the better men. I can't do that
by going through oratorical gymnastics in America or by writing racy
descriptions of the Canadians' bravery for the international press. I
shall be less than nothing when I return to France—merely subaltern
whose life isn't very highly valued. But in my heart I shall know
myself a man. There's no one understands my motive but you three,
who have most to lose by my cripplement or death. All my friends
over here think me an ass to throw away such chances—they say
I'm economically squandering myself in the place where I'm least
trained to do the best work. I know they talk sense; but they don't
talk chivalry. If every man took the first chance offered him to get
out of the catastrophe, where would the Huns' offensive end?
You've probably been writing hard at The Father of a Soldier, and
saying all that you would like to say to me in that. I'm most anxious
to see the manuscript of it. If you please, how could the son of the
man who wrote that book accept a cushy job?
I wonder if you've reached the point yet where you don't think
that dying matters? I suspect you have. You remember what
Roosevelt said after seeing his last son off, “If he comes back he'll
have to explain to me the why and how.” That's the Japanese spirit—
honour demands when a man returns from battle that he can give
good reasons why he is not dead. Others, his friends and comrades,
are dead; how does he happen to be living? In that connection I
think of Charlie S., lying somewhere in the mud of Ypres, with an
insignificant cross above his head. He won a dozen decorations
which were not given him. He had a baby whom he had only seen
once. He was my pal. Why should I live, while he is dead? I can
always hear him singing in the mess in a pleasant tenor voice. We
used to share our affections and our troubles. He was what the
Canadians call “a white man.” I can't see myself living in comfort
while he is dead. It's odd the things one remembers about a man.

I
We got the idea in the Somme that oil on the feet would prevent
them from becoming frozen. One time when Charlie was going up
forward we hadn't any oil, so he used brilliantine. It smelt of violets,
and we made the highest of game of him. Poor old Charlie, he
doesn't feel the cold now!
I'm afraid I've written a lot of rot in this letter—I've talked far too
much of a host of things which are better left unsaid. But I had to—I
wanted to make quite certain that you wouldn't blame me for
refusing safety. I've relieved myself immensely by getting all of this
off my chest.
XXII
London
December 17, 1917
'm waiting for Eric, and, while waiting, propose to tell you the
story of my past few days. I think when you've come to the end
of my account you'll agree that I've been mixing my drinks
considerably with regard to the personalities whose acquaintance I
have made.
On Friday evening I was invited to dinner by Lieutenant C., the
American Navy man with whom I crossed in November. I met—
whom do you think?—George Grossmith, Leslie Henson, Julia James,
Madge Saunders, and Lord C————.
I may say that Lord C————is not a member of the Gaiety
Company, though I seem to have included him. The occasion was
really the weekly dinner given by the American Officers' Club; the
Gaiety Company was there to entertain. I think it is typical of
England's attitude towards the American Army that people from such
different walks of life should have been present to do the U.S.A.
honour. Lord C————is a splendid type of old-fashioned courtier,
with a great, kindly, bloodhound face. He had ensigns and officers of
whatsoever rank brought to him, and spoke to them with the fine
manly equality of the true-bred aristocrat. It was amusing to see the

breezy American boys quite unembarrassed, most of them unaware
of Lord C————'s political eminence, exchanging views in the
friendliest of fashions, while the old gentleman, keeping seated,
leaning forward on his stick with one hand resting attentively on a
young fellow's arm, expressed his warm appreciation of America's
eagerness.
Grossmith was in the uniform our boys wear—that of a lieutenant
in the R.N.V.R. Leslie Henson is now a mechanic in the motor-
transport by day and a Gaiety star in the evenings. He says that it
costs him much money to cure the ache which the Army gives to his
back—but he continues to do his “bit” by day and to amuse Tommies
home on leave in the evenings.
Next day, Saturday, I went down to Bath to meet Raemaekers, the
Dutch cartoonist. Mr. Lane was our host. Raemaekers is a great man.
On the journey I tried to picture him. I saw him as a pale-faced
man, with lank black hair and a touch of the Jew about him. I rather
expected to find him worn and slightly more than middle-aged, with
nervous hands and hollow eyes. I reminded myself that of the
world's artists, he was the only one who had risen to the sheerness
of the occasion. He expresses the conscience of the aloof
cosmopolitan as regards Germany's war-methods. England, incurably
good-humoured, has only Bairnsfather's comic portrayals of Old Bill
to place beside this indignant Dutchman's moral hatred of Hun
cruelty. From the station I went to the Bath Club; there I met not at
all what I had imagined. He looks like a Frans Hals burgher,
comfortable, with a high complexion, a small pointed beard,
chestnut hair, and searching grey eyes. His charity of appearance
belies him, for his eyes and mouth have a terrific purpose. His hands
are the hands of a fighting man which crush. You would pass him in
the street as unremarkable unless he looked at you—his eyes are
daggers which stop you dead.
There were four of us at lunch—he sat at my right and we talked
like a river in flood. He's just back from America, thrilled by the
Americans' unimpassioned, lawful thoroughness. He had found
something akin to his own temperament in the nation's genius—the

same capacity to brush aside facetiousness in a crisis, and to attain a
Hebrew prophet's faculty for hatred. One doesn't want to laugh
when women lie dead in the ash-pits of Belgium. I have been with
him many hours and have scarcely seen him smile, and yet his face
is kindly. As you know, the Kaiser had set a price upon his head. His
death would mean more to the Hun than the destruction of many
British Divisions. He has pilloried the Kaiser's beastliness for all time.
When future ages want to know what the Kaiser said to Christ, they
will find it all in the thousand Raemaekers' sketches. Traps have
been laid for his capture from time to time. Submarines have been
dispatched with orders to take him alive. He knows what awaits him
if such plans should meet with success—a lingering, tortured death;
consequently he travels armed, and has promised his wife to blow
his brains out the moment he is captured. We talked of many things
—of the Hague and H. among other things. He knew the P.'., and
drew a sketch of Mr. P. on the tablecloth with his pencil. I tried to
purchase the tablecloth that I might send it to America, but the club
secretary was before me.
In the afternoon I went to the railway-station and spoke with a
porter who was pushing a barrow—Henry Chappell, who wrote “The
Day”—the first war-poet of 1914. As luck would have it, it was
Saturday, the day upon which John Lane had brought out his volume
of poems; it was rather pathetic to find him carrying on with his
humble task on the proudest afternoon of his life. I told him how I
had seen his poem pasted up in prominent places all the way from
the Atlantic to the Pacific. He smiled in a patient fashion, and said
that he had heard about it. I understand that he made one hundred
pounds out of this poem and gave it all to the Red Cross. A
gentleman, if you want to find one! I asked him if he didn't look
forward to promotion now. He shook his head gravely—he liked
portering. At parting I shook his hand, but, when I had dropped it,
he touched his cap—and touched my heart in the doing of it.
On Sunday I was back in town. Eric turned up this morning,
looking gallant and smiling, with an exceedingly glad eye. He's just
the same as he always was, discontented with his job because he

T
thinks it's too safe and trying to find one more dangerous. We're
going to have a great time together, unless I get my marching
orders from the Foreign Office.
I lunched with Raemaekers at Claridge's today and have just come
back. He's an elemental moralist, encased in a burgher's exterior. He
affects me with a sense of restrained power. One is surprised to see
him eating like other men. How I wish that I could detest as he
detests! And yet he has heart in plenty. He told me a story of a
French battalion going out to die. The last soldier stepped out of the
ranks towards his colonel, who was weeping for his men who would
not come back. Flinging his arms about his commanding officer, he
kissed him and said, “Do not fear, my Colonel; we shall not disgrace
you.” He has an eye for magnanimity, that man.
XXIII
London
December 31, 1917
his foggy London morning early your three letters from 5th to
18th December arrived. I jumped out of bed, lit the gas,
retreated under the blankets, and devoured them, leaning on
my elbow.
This is the last day of the old year—a quaint old year it has been
for all of us. I commenced it quite reconciled to the thought that it
would be my last; and here I am, while poor Charlie S. and so many
other fellows whom I loved are dead. It only shows how very foolish
it is to anticipate trouble, for the last twelve months have been the
very best and richest of my life. If I were to die now, I should feel
that I had at least done something with my handful of years.
I'd like to have another glimpse of America now that in the face of
reverses she has grown sterner. It's certain at last that there'll be a
lot of American boys who won't come back. They're going to be real
soldiers, going to go over the top and to endure all the fierce
heroisms of an attack. It's cruel to say so, but it's better for

H
America's soul that she should have her taste of battle after all the
shouting.
On Saturday F. R. came to see us. He's home on leave. He and P.
and I sitting down together after all the years that have intervened
since we were at Oxford together! As F. expressed it, blinking
through his spectacles, “Doesn't it seem silly that I should be
dressed up like this and that you should be dressed like that?” He
went out in January as a second lieutenant, and returned
commanding his battalion. God moves in a mysterious way, doesn't
He? One can't help wondering why some should “go west” at once
and others should be spared. Bob H., who was also with us at
Oxford, as you will remember, lasted exactly six days. The first day
in the trenches he was wounded, but not sufficiently to go out. The
sixth day he was killed.
Did I tell you that there's a nerve hospital near here crowded with
nerve-shattered babies on one floor and nerve-shattered Tommies
on the next? The babies are all dressed in red and the Tommies in
the usual hospital blue. Each day the shell-shocked chaps go up to
visit the children; the moment the door opens and the blue figures
appear, the little red crowd stretch out their arms and cry, “My
soldier! My soldier!” for each Tommy has his own particular pet.
When a child gets a nervous attack, it is often only the one particular
soldier who can do the soothing. Who'd think that men fresh from
the carnage could be so tender! And people say that war makes men
brutal. Humph!
XXIV
A French Port
January 3, 1918
ere I am again in France and extraordinarily glad to be here. I
feel that I'm again a part of the game—I couldn't feel that
while I was in London. I landed here this morning and arrive
in Paris to-night. The crossing was one of the quietest. I know a lot

of people didn't lie down at all, and still others slept with their
clothes on. Like a sensible fellow I crept into my berth at 9 p.m., and
slept like a top till morning. If we'd been submarined I shouldn't
have known it.
I feel tremendously elated by the thought of this new adventure,
and intend to make the most of it. As you know, nothing would have
persuaded me to delay my return to the Front except an opportunity
for doing work of these dimensions. I really do believe that I have
the chance of a lifetime to do work of international importance. I
want to make the Americans feel that they have become our
kinsmen through the magnitude of their endeavour. And I want to
make the British shake off their reticence in applauding the
magnanimity of America's enthusiasm.
It's been snowing here; but I don't feel cold because of the
warmth inside me. The place where I am now is one of the
pleasure-haunts which Eric and I visited together in that golden
summer of long ago. Little did I think that I should be here next time
in such belligerent attire and on such an errand. Life's a queer
kaleidoscope. But, oh, for such another summer, with the long
secure peace of July days, and the whole green world to wander!
One doubts whether El Dorado will ever come again.
I see the girl-soldiers of England everywhere nowadays. A
reinforcing draft crossed over with me on the steamer—high
complexions and laughing faces, trim uniforms and tiny ankles.
They're brave! It's a pity we can't give them a chance of just one
crack at the Huns. But they have to stop behind the lines and drive
lorries, and be good girls, and beat typewriters. Their little girl-
officers are mighty dignified. What a gallant world! I wouldn't have it
otherwise.
For me the New Year is starting well. I face it in higher spirits than
any of its predecessors. And well I may, for I didn't expect to be
alive to greet 1918. I hope you are all just as much on the crest of
the wave in your hopes and anticipations. Nothing can be worse
than some of the experiences that lie behind—and that's some

H
comfort. Nothing can be more chivalrous than the opportunities
which lie before us.
So here's good-bye to you from France once again.
XXV
Paris January 8, 1918
ere I am in Paris, starting on my new adventure of writing the
story of what the Americans are doing in the war. I left
England on 2nd January, which was a Wednesday, and
arrived here Thursday evening. As you know, while I was in the
Front line I had very little idea of what France at war was like. One
crossed from England, clambered on a military train with all the
windows smashed, had a cold night journey, and found himself at
once among the shell-holes. I was very keen on seeing what Paris
was like; now that I've seen it, it's very difficult to describe. It's very
much the same as it always was—only while its atmosphere was
once champagne, now it is a strong, still wine. As in England, only to
a greater extent, women are doing the work of men. The streets are
full of the wounded—not the wounded with well-fitted artificial limbs
that you see in London, but with ordinary wooden stumps, etc. Our
English wounded are always gay and laughing—determined to treat
the war as a humorous episode to the end. The French wounded are
grave, afflicted, and ordinary. I think the Frenchman, with an
emotional honesty of which we are incapable, has from the first
viewed the war as a colossal Calvary, and has seen it against the
historic skyline of a travailing world. Never by speech or gesture has
he disguised the fact that he, as an individual, is engaged in a fore-
ordained and unparalleled adventure of sacrifice. The Englishman,
self-conscious of his own heroic gallantry, cloaks his fineness with
pretended indifference and has succeeded in deceiving the world.
Our sportsmanship in the face of death impresses more complex
nations as irreligion. So while London is outwardly gayer than ever,
Paris has a stiff upper lip, a look of sternness in its eyes, and very
little laughter on its mouth. By nine-thirty in the evening every

restaurant is closed, and the streets are empty till the soldiers on
leave troop out from the theatres.
As for the food, I have seen no shortage in France as yet. You can
get plenty of butter and sugar, whereas in London margarine is rare
and sugar is doled out. The talk of France being ex hausted is all
rubbish; you can feel the muscles of a great nation struggling the
moment you land.
I have had a most kindly and helpful reception from the American
Press Division. They have realized with the usual American quickness
of mind the importance of what I propose to do. One of their officers
starts out with me to-night on my first tour of military activities. It
will take about five days. I then return to Paris to write up what I
have seen, and afterwards set out again in a new direction. If I take
the proper advantage of my opportunities, I ought to get an
amazingly interesting lot of material.
Saturday I was lucky enough to secure a car, and went the round
of my introductions, to the British Embassy and your friends from
Newark.
I've been to two theatres. The audiences were composed for the
most part of soldiers on leave—American, British, Canadian,
Australian, Belgian, French, with the merest sprinkling of civilians.
Sunday I walked through the Luxembourg, most of the galleries of
which are closed. Afterwards I walked in the Gardens and watched
the Parisians sliding on the ice. For the moment they forgot they
were at war, and became children. There were little boys and girls,
soldiers with their sweethearts, fat old men and women, all running
and pushing and sliding and falling and chattering. I thought of
Trilby with her grave, kind eyes. Then I walked down the Boule
Miche to Notre Dame, where women were praying for their dead.
To-day Paris is under snow, and again the child spirit has asserted
itself. Soldiers and sailors are pelting one another with snowballs in
the streets, and Jupiter continues to pluck his geese and send their
feathers drifting down the sky.

A
This time last year I was marching into action with temperature of
104 degrees, and you were reaching London, wondering whether I
was truly coming on leave. A queer year it has been; in spite of all
our anticipations to the contrary, we're still alive. I wish we were to
meet again this year, and we may. We know so little. As Whitcomb
Riley says in complete acceptance of human fortuitousness, “No
child knows when it goes to sleep.”
XXVI
Paris
January 13, 1918
bout an hour ago I got into Paris from my first trip. I've been
where M. and I spent our splendid summer so many years
ago, only now the river is spanned with ice and the country is
a grey-sage colour. From what I can see the Americans are
preparing as if for a war that is going to last for thirty years. America
is in the war literally to her last man and her last dollar; when her
hour comes to strike, she will be like a second England in the fight.
I made my tour with an officer who was with Hoover three years
in Belgium, and who before that was a student in Paris. As a
consequence, he speaks French like a native. Every detail of my trip
was arranged ahead by telephone and telegram; automobiles were
waiting. There is no pretence about the American Army. My rank as
lieutenant is, of course, quite inadequate to the task I have
undertaken. But the American high officer carries no side or swank.
Having produced my credentials, I am seated at the mess beside
generals and allowed to ask any questions, however searching.
Everyone I have met as yet is hats off to the English and the French
—they go out of their way to make comparisons which are in their
own disfavour and unjust to themselves. I have been making a
particular study of their transport facilities and their artillery training.
Both are being carried out on a magnificently thorough scale. I
undertake to assert that they will have as fine artillery as can be

found on the Western Front by the time they are ready. I certainly
never saw such painstaking and methodical training.
As you know, the phase of the war that I am particularly
interested in is the closeness of international relations that will result
when the war is ended. The tightening of bonds between the
French, Americans and English can be daily witnessed and felt. The
Americans are loud in their praise of their French and British
instructors—the instructors are equally proud of their pupils. On the
street, in hotels and trains, the three races hobnob together.
I came back to-day with a French artillery and cavalry officer—
splendid fellows. We had fought together on the Somme, we
discovered, and had occupied the same Front, though at separate
times, at Vimy. The artilleryman was a young French noble, and, as
only noblemen can these days, had a car waiting for him at the
station He insisted on taking me to my hotel, and we parted the
most excellent friends.
I have two days in which to write up my experiences, and on
Tuesday I shall set out on a tour in a new direction. So much I am
able to tell you; the rest will be in my book when it is published.
This time last year we were together in London—how long ago it
seems and sounds! Years are longer and of more value than they
once were. This year I'm here. Next year where? This time next year
the war will not be ended, I'm certain, nor even the year after that,
perhaps. The more we feel our strength, the more we are called
upon to suffer, the sterner will become our terms.
It's nearly eleven, my dear ones, and time that I was asleep. I
have Henri Bordeaux's story of The Last Days of Fort Vaux beside
me—it's most heroic reading. What shall we do when the gates of
heroism grow narrow and peace has been declared? Something
spiritual will have gone out of life when the challenge of the horrible
is ended.
XXVII

I
Paris
January 19, 1918
'm expecting to go to American Headquarters on Tuesday and to
see something of work immediately behind the lines. I find what
I am doing exceptionally interesting, and hope to do a good
book on it.
Wherever one goes the best men one meets are Hoover's disciples
from Belgium. They tell extraordinary stories of the heroism of the
patriots whom they knew there—people by the score who duplicated
Miss Cavell's courage and paid the penalty. Their experience of Hun
brutality has somehow dulled their sense of horror—they speak of it
as something quite commonplace and to be expected.
On Friday I saw Miss Holt's work for the blind. She bears out for
France all that I have said about the amazing sharing of the
wounded in England. One man in her care was not only totally blind,
but he had also lost both arms. In the hospital there were men less
grievously mutilated than himself, who hardly knew how to endure
their loss. For the sake of the cheeriness of his example, he used to
go round the ward with gifts of cigarettes, which he almost thought
he lit for the men himself, for he used to say to Miss Holt before
undertaking such a journey, “You are my hands.”
We, in England, and still less in America, have never approached
the loathing which is felt for the Boche in France. Men spit as they
utter his name, as though the very word was foul in the mouth.
Wherever you go lonely men or women are pointed out to you; all of
his or her family are behind the German lines. We think we have
suffered, but we have not sounded one fathom of this depth of
agony. On every hand I hear that the French Army is stronger than
ever, better equipped and more firm in its moral. As an impassioned
Frenchman said to me yesterday, his eyes blazing as he banged the
table, “They shall not pass. I say so—and I am France.”
In the face of all this I do not wonder that the French
misunderstand the easy good-humour with which we English go out
to die. In their eyes and with the throbbing of their wounds, this war

Y
is a matter for neither good-humour nor sportsmanship, but only for
the indignant, inarticulate wrath of a Hebrew god. If every weapon
was taken from their hands and all the young men were gone, with
clenched fists those who were left would smite and smite to the last.
It is fitting that they should feel this way, but I'm glad that our
English boys can still laugh while they die.
And now I'm going out on the Boulevards to get lunch.
XXVIII
Paris
January 30, 1918
esterday on my return to Paris I found all your letters awaiting
me—a real big pile which took me over an hour to read. The
latest was written on New Year's Day in the throes of coal
shortage and intense cold. Really it seems absurd that you should be
starved for warmth in America. Last week I was within eighteen
kilometres of the Front line staying in a hotel as luxurious as the
Astor, with plenty of heat and a hot bath at midnight in a private
bathroom. All the appointments and comforts were perfect; booming
through the night came the perpetual muttering of the guns. There
were troops of all kinds marching up for an attack; the villages were
packed, but there was no disorganization.
Well, I've had a great trip this last time. I went to see refugee
work—and saw it. There were barracks full of babies—the youngest
only six days' old. There were very many children who have been re-
captured from the Huns.
To-morrow I start off for the borders of Switzerland to see the
repatriated French civilians arrive. Then I go with the head of the
Red Cross for a tour to see the reconstruction work in the
devastated districts. When that is finished, I return to London to put
my book together. I hope to get back to my battery about the end of
March.

I
What a time I have had. A year ago it would have seemed
impossible. I've motored, gone by speeders and trains to all kinds of
quiet and ancient places which it would never have entered my head
to visit in peace times. The American soldier is everywhere, striking
a strange note of modernity and contrast. He sits on fences through
the country-side, swinging his legs and smoking Bull Durham, when
he isn't charging a swinging sack with a bayonet. He is the particular
pal of all the French children.
I'm now due for a day of interviews and shall have to ring off. I
rose at seven this morning so as to write this letter. At the moment
I'm sitting in a deep arm-chair, with an electric lamp at my elbow.
It's an awful war! In less than two months I'll be sitting in clothes
that I haven't taken off for a fortnight—the mud will be my couch
and the flash of the guns my reading lamp. It's funny, but up there
in the discomfort I shall be ten times more happy.
XXIX
Paris
February 13, 1918
've not heard from you for two weeks—which is no fault of
yours. There was a delay in getting passports—so I'm only just
back from the devastated districts and get on board the train for
London to-night. It's exactly six weeks today since I left England on
this adventure.
I've done a good many things since last I wrote you. Did I tell you
that among others I visited Miss Holt's work for the blind? I can
think of nothing which does more to call out one's sympathy than to
sit among those sightless eyes. I have talked about courage, but
these men leave me appalled and silent. They are covered with
decorations—the Legion d'.onneur, etc. They all have their stories.
One, after he had been wounded and while there was still a chance
of saving his sight, insisted on being taken to his General that he

might give information about a German mine. When his mission was
completed his chance of ever seeing again was ended.
On the way back I saw Joffre walking. I now know why they call
him Papa Joffre. He is huge, ungainly, and white and kind. Somehow
he made me think of a puppy—he had such an air of surprise. There
was a premature touch of spring in the tree-tops. The grand old man
of France was aware of it—he looked as though it were his first
spring, so young in an ancient sort of way. He was stopping all the
time to watch the sparrows flying and the shrubs growing misty with
greenness. For all his braid and decorations he looked like an
amiable boy of splendid size.
And then I went to Amiens. When I was in the line, it was always
my dream to get there. Our senior officers used to play hooky in
Amiens and come back with wonderful tales of sheeted beds and
perpetual baths. I got there toward evening and was met by a
British Staff officer with a car. After dinner I escaped him and
wandered through the crooked streets, encountering everywhere my
dearly beloved British Tommy, straight out of the trenches for a few
hours' respite. As I passed estaminets I could hear concertinas being
played and voices singing. It was London and heroism and home-
sickness all muddled up together that these voices sang. And they
sang just one song. It is the first song I heard in France, when the
war was very much younger. When the war is ended, I expect it will
be the last. If the war goes on for another thirty years, our Tommies
will be singing it—wheezing it out on concertinas and mouth-organs,
in rain and sunshine, on the line of march, on leave or in their
cramped billets. Invincible optimists that they are—so ordinary, so
extraordinary, so good-humoured and mild! I peered in through the
estaminets' windows of Amiens—there they sat with their equipment
off, their elbows on the table and their small beer before them. And
here's what they sang, as so many who are dead have sung before
them:
“Après la guerre fini

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