Two German airplanes passed overhead, and the hum of their engines was loud in my ears as I lay in the grass. Our shrapnel burst about them, but did not touch their wings. All around there was the slamming of great guns, and I sat chewing a bit of straw by the side of a shell-hole, thinking in the same old way of the utter senselessness of all this noise and hate and sudden death which encircled me for miles. No amount of meditation would screw a new meaning out of it all. It was just the commonplace of life out here.

The routine of it went on. The officer who came back from home stepped into his old place, and after the first greeting of, “Hullo, old man! Had a good time?” found his old job waiting for him. So there was a new brigadier-general? Quick promotion, by Jove!