Men who had been hurling bombs in the
Ypres salient bombarded one another with hand-grenades, which burst
noiselessly except for the shouts of laughter that signaled a good
hit.
French soldiers were at the same game in one village I passed, where
the snow-fight was fast and furious, and some of our officers led an
attack upon old comrades with the craft of trappers and an expert
knowledge of enfilade fire. The white peace did not last long. The
ermine mantle on the battlefield was stained by scarlet patches as
soon as men could see to fight again.
XI
For some days in that February of 1916 the war correspondents in the
Chateau of Tilques, from which they made their expeditions to the
line, were snowed up like the army round them. Not even the motor-cars
could move through that snow which drifted across the roads. We sat
indoors talking--high treason sometimes--pondering over the problem of
a war from which there seemed no way out, becoming irritable with one
another's company, becoming passionate in argument about the ethics of
war, the purpose of man, the gospel of Christ, the guilt of Germany,
and the dishonesty of British politicians.
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