LAND AND WATER 
July 17, 1915. 
fcillets of the men in lofts, barns, and cowbyrcs. On 
the whole they are very comfortable, bedded down on 
dry straw, with a bundle of hay for head-rest. At 
battalion headquarters orders are transacted, punish- 
ments for misdemeanour awarded, and future opera- 
tions, either in or out of tlie trenches, discussed in 
detail by the commanding officer, the adjutant, and 
company officers. After which we go our several 
.ways to the midday meal. Our own billet is about half 
a mile distant down a long, straight bit of road, bor- 
dered on either hand by flat fields and ditches, willoft-s, 
and dwarf oalcs. There is no traffic on the road but an 
occasional wagon rattling past. Only a few groups of 
gunners are visible here and there. The one notable 
sound is the busy humming of a threshing machine at 
the neighbouring farm. 
A midday meal, more ample than elegant, iawaits 
us. Beefsteak, with bacon and many potatoes, steam- 
ing hot; slices of stout plum r^ke sent from home — 
for tliis is pudding ready-made; and much ration bread 
with very white Belgian butter and jam. And through 
the half-open doorway we catch a ghmpse as follows : 
The worthy Smith and his crony Walter are seated on 
biscuit boxes by the fireside, balancing their cheese on 
the edge of their knves. They are surrounded by the 
•whole French family — p^re et mfere et fiJles — from 
whom frequently come peals of laughter at the sallies 
perpetrated by our faithful satellites in Glasgow- 
Cockney " parlez-vous."- And, truth to tell, tlie good 
people never cease to laugh and jest though the enemy 
are at their very gates. Which is the way of their 
country. Nor can I say that the Germans behaved 
badly when billeted here ; neither was it otherwise the 
case in other billets known to me. First in September 
came the Uhlans to this wayside farmhouse; and 
later a detachment of Hussars. They paid for every- 
tiling tliey took and all behaved respectfully. Which is 
one of the few things I have heard to the credit of our 
enemies. 
After luncheon tloere is a musketry parade, and 
afterwards we stroll down to a field to watch a football 
match. The battalion team is playing an artillery eleven. 
[Everybody is there to watch the game : much excite- 
ment. No one notices the incessant " boom " of the 
German guns and the scream and the bang of their 
shells, whicli are exploding as regular as clockwork 
around a farmstead not three hundred yards away, 
until attention is momentarily distracted by a shell 
bursting unmistakably in tlie very next field. Then 
someone bethinks himself of the threshing macliine, 
which, sending up a column of black smoke, offers an 
ideal target to tlie German artillery. At the same time 
our owm guns take up the challenge, and the game of 
football goes calmly on beneath an unending proces- 
sion of " Jcick Johnsons." So accustomed is everybody 
to this comparatively harmless demonstration that no 
one takes the smallest interest in it until a shell chances 
to crash tlirough the roof of the little ion which stands 
at the cross-roads near by. 
Then it seems advisable to go home to tea. A busy 
evening awaits us. A great pile of at least two 
hundred letters have to be censored. Each must be 
glanced through before being officially stamped. This, 
mind you, is one of the most onerous (and tiresome) 
duties of company officers at the front. Meanwhile 
the Germans have ceased shelling, as have our own 
guns, and all is quiet outside. We work by the light 
of candles tlirust into the necks of empty bottles. Pre- 
sently tlie post arrives — the greatest event of tliis and 
every day — and it has to be answered. Writing letters 
home is a pleasure second only to that of receiving 
them. Also the English newspapers come to hand. 
And tliere is a bottle of port done up tantalisingly in 
straw, and a new cake, not to mention a beautiful bone- 
less diicken in a glass case. Perhaps tlie tliought is a 
little degrading — I mean that one lives for one's 
stomach these days, and the invariable source of 
quarrel between a man and his friend is that the latter 
has better food or more of it I 
After dinner tlie men have a concert in the big 
bam. There they all gather, serried masses of tliem, lying 
bn the piles of straw and hay, ranged along the beams, 
and squatting in rows upon the floor. And Jock, who 
has a concertina, performs upon it; and Bill, who is 4 
bit of a wag, sings funny songs ; and Alf provides a 
sentimental ditty (chiefly about the girl he left behind 
him); while Captain Jim (aforementioned) tells tlie most 
outrageous stories in the drollest manner possible; and 
everybody smokes and claps and jests and roars td 
their heart's content. So that for this brief hour w-e all 
forget the war — which, I verily believe, is the chief 
ambition of every honest soldier at the front. 
THE IDEALS OF THE WAR. 
LIBERTY. 
By L. March Phillipps. 
GERMANY has one considerable advantage in 
this war in tliat the cause for which she 
fights admits of instant definition and can 
state itself in three words. Deuischland 
uber Alles is a proposition which every unit 
tof a crowd can equally appreciate. It is a shout in vv'hich 
all can join, and it therefore tends to produce and 
to maintain tliat unity of will which is of such incal- 
culable value as a support for a nation's armies in 
the field. 
We are less fortunate. It is indeed true, as was 
pointed out in our last article, that the principle of 
liberty for which the Allies are fighting is so rapidly 
gaining ground in Europe that already it is in a fair 
.way to being accepted as a common ideaL And indeed, 
if we imagine the Prussian menace removed, it is evi- 
'dent that, among all the other European nations, hberty 
klready forms a bond of mutual sympathy and under- 
standing which seems to promise a Europe at peace 
fend in agreement with itself for many a year to come. 
But still tlie fact remains that the principle of 
liberty, though thus irresistibly winning its way, does 
Hot convey 9, distinct picture to the mind in the sense in 
which the German ideal conveys to every German 
mind the picture of Germany with her heel on tlie 
world's neclc. The word liberty has to be pondered 
over before the full meaning of it can be disengaged. 
Moreover, there is in particular one reason which pro- 
vents us from doing this and makes us shy of using the 
word too freely or dwelling on it overmuch, and that 
is that it has become imbued with political associations 
and carries our memories back to those party contests 
and party cries which we are all doing our best to 
forget and lay on one side, but which have such a dis- 
concerting habit nevertheless of reasserting themselves 
on all possible occasions. 
This is a pity. We cannot do without tliis word 
liberty. Unless the war is about liberty, it is about 
nothing intelligible. Unless England stands for 
liberty, she stands for nothing. Unless the British 
Empire, in its growth and unity, testifies to the vitalis- 
ing influence of liberty as an ideal of life, it has na 
meaning whatever. The very first step in an inquiry 
like tlie present brings us face to face with this prin- 
ciple, for to grasp the significance of tlie ideals at present 
in conflict is. in tlie first place of all, to eraso the 
