Chapter 13

Gloom descends on the little kitchen. The visitor is at a loss--when suddenly the round, motherly face changes.--"But _there_ now! I'm goin' to smile, whatever 'appens. I'm not one as is goin' to give in! And we 'ad a letter from Arthur [her son in the trenches] this morning, to say 'is Company's on the list for leave, and 'e's applied.--Oh dear, Miss, just to _think_ of it!"

Then, with a catch in her voice:

"But it's not the comin' home, Miss--it's _the goin' back again_! Yes, I'll come to the cookin', Miss, if I _possibly_ can!"

There's the spirit of our country folk--patriotic, patient, true.

As to labour conditions generally. I spoke, perhaps, in my first letter rather too confidently, for the moment, of the labour situation. There has been one serious strike among the engineers since I began to write, and a good many minor troubles. But neither the Tyne nor the Clyde was involved, and though valuable time was lost, in the end the men were brought back to work quite as much by the pressure of public opinion among their own comrades, men and women, as by any Government action. The Government have since taken an important step from which much is hoped, by dividing up the country into districts and appointing local commissioners to watch over and, if they can, remove the causes of "unrest"--causes which are often connected with the inevitable friction of a colossal transformation, and sometimes with the sheer fatigue of the workers, whose achievement--munition-workers, ship-wrights, engineers--during these three years has been nothing short of marvellous.

As to finance, the colossal figures of last year, of which I gave a summary in _England's Effort,_ have been much surpassed. The Budget of Great Britain for this year, including advances to our Allies, reaches the astounding figure of two thousand three hundred million sterling. Our war expenditure is now close upon six million sterling a day (£5,600,000). Of this the expenditure on the Army and Navy and munitions has risen from a daily average of nearly three millions sterling, as it stood last year, to a daily average of nearly five millions.

But the nation has not spent in vain!

"Compare the first twenty-four days of the fighting on the Somme last year,"--said Mr. Bonar Law in a recent speech--"with the first twenty-four days of the operations of this spring. Four times as much territory had been taken from the enemy in this offensive as was taken in the Somme, against the resistance of double the number of German divisions. And of those divisions just one-half have had to be withdrawn--shattered--from the fighting line while the British casualties in the offensive have been from 50 to 75 per cent, less than the casualties in the Somme fighting."

Consider, too, the news which is still fresh as I finish this letter--(June 11th)--of the victory of Messines; perhaps the most complete, the most rounded success--so far--that has fallen to the British armies in the war! Last year, in three months' fighting on the Somme, we took the strongly fortified Albert ridge, and forced the German retreat of last February. On April 8th of this year began the battle of Arras which gave us the Vimy Ridge, and a free outlook over the Douai plain. And finally, on June 7th, four days ago, the Messines ridge, which I saw last year on March 2nd--apparently impregnable and inaccessible!--from a neighbouring hill, with the German trenches scored along its slopes, was captured by General Plumer and his splendid army in a few hours, after more than twelve months' preparation, with lighter casualties than have ever fallen to a British attack before, with heavy losses to the enemy, large captures of guns, and 7,000 prisoners. Our troops have since moved steadily forward; and the strategic future is rich in possibilities. The Germans have regained nothing; and the German press has not yet dared to tell the German people of the defeat. Let us remember also the victorious campaign of this year in Mesopotamia; and the welcome stroke of the past week in Greece, by which King "Tino" has been at last dismissed, and the Liberal forces of the Greek nation set free.

* * * * *

Aye, we do consider--we do remember--these things! We feel that the goal is drawing slowly but steadily nearer, that ultimate victory is certain, and with victory, the dawn of a better day for Europe. But who, least of all a woman, can part from the tragic spectacle of this war without bitterness of spirit?

_"Who will give us back our children?"_

Wickedness and wrong will find their punishment, and the dark Hours now passing, in the torch-race of time, will hand the light on to Hours of healing and of peace. But the dead return not. It is they whose appealing voices seem to be in the air to-day, as we think of America.

Among the Celts of ancient Brittany there was a belief which still survives in the traditions of the Breton peasants and in the name of part of the Breton coast. Every All Souls' Night, says a story at least as old as the sixth century, the souls of the dead gather on the cliffs of Brittany, above that bay which is still called the "Bai des Trépassés," waiting for their departure across the ocean to a far region of the west, where the gods sit for judgment, and the good find peace. On that night, the fishermen hear at midnight mysterious knockings at their doors. They go down to the water's edge, and behold, there are boats unknown to them, with no visible passengers. But the fishermen take the oars, and though they see nothing, they feel the presence of the souls crowding into the boats, and they row, on and on, into the west, past the farthest point of any land they know. Suddenly, they feel the boats lightened of all that weight of spirits, and the souls are gone--streaming out with solemn cries and longing into the wide illimitable ocean of the west, in search of some invisible shore.

So now the call of those hundreds of thousands who have given their young lives--so beloved, so rich in promise!--for their country and the freedom of men, is in your ears and ours. The dead are witnesses of the compact between you and us. For that cause to which they brought their ungrudged sacrifice has now laid its resistless claim on you. Together, the free peoples of Europe and America have now to carry it to victory --victory, just, necessary, and final.

MARY A. WARD.