Energy books

That is to say, the losses of their division in that
time, made up by new drafts, was 100 per cent.; and the Hohenzollern
took the highest toll of life and limbs.


V

I heard no carols in the trenches on Christmas Eve in 1915, but
afterward, when I sat with a pint of water in each of my top-boots,
among a company of men who were wet to the knees and slathered with
moist mud, a friend of mine raised his hand and said, "Listen!"
Through the open door came the music of a mouth--organ, and it was
playing an old tune:
God rest ye, merry gentlemen. Let nothing you dismay, For Jesus
Christ, our Saviour, Was born on Christmas Day.
Outside the wind was howling across Flanders with a doleful whine,
rising now and then into a savage violence which rattled the window-
panes, and beyond the booming of its lower notes was the faint, dull
rumble of distant guns.
"Christmas Eve!" said an officer. "Nineteen hundred and fifteen years
ago . . . and now--this!"
He sighed heavily, and a few moments later told a funny story, which
was followed by loud laughter.


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