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I went to General Pilcher's headquarters at Reninghelst on March 4th,
and found the staff of the 17th Division frosty in their greeting,
while General Pratt, the brigadier of the 3d Division, was conducting
the attack in their new territory. General Pilcher himself was much
shaken. The old gentleman had been at St.-Eloi when the bombardment
had begun on his men. With Captain Rattnag his A. D. C. he lay for an
hour in a ditch with shells screaming overhead and bursting close.
More than once when I talked with him he raised his head and listened
nervously and said: "Do you hear the guns? . . . They are terrible."
I was sorry for him, this general who had many theories on war and
experimented in light-signals, as when one night I stood by his side
in a dark field, and had a courteous old-fashioned dignity and
gentleness of manner. He was a fine old English gentleman and a
gallant soldier, but modern warfare was too brutal for him. Too brutal
for all those who hated its slaughter.


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