When they did so, with true Teutonic
punctuality, an hour later, our friends were well on their way home to
billets and bed--with the dawn breaking behind them, the larks getting
to work overhead, and all the infected air of the German graveyard
swept out of their lungs by the dew of the morning.
As for that imperturbable philosopher, Box, he sat down with a
cigarette, and waited for Cox.
XVII
THE NEW WARFARE
The trench system has one thing to recommend it. It tidies things up a
bit.
For the first few months after the war broke out confusion reigned
supreme. Belgium and the north of France were one huge jumbled
battlefield, rather like a public park on a Saturday afternoon--one of
those parks where promiscuous football is permitted. Friend and
foe were inextricably mingled, and the direction of the goal was
uncertain. If you rode into a village, you might find it occupied by
a Highland regiment or a squadron of Uhlans. If you dimly discerned
troops marching side by side with you in the dawning, it was by no
means certain that they would prove to be your friends. On the other
hand, it was never safe to assume that a battalion which you saw
hastily entrenching itself against your approach was German. It
might belong to your own brigade. There was no front and no rear, so
direction counted for nothing. The country swarmed with troops which
had been left "in the air," owing to their own too rapid advance,
or the equally rapid retirement of their supporters; with scattered
details trying to rejoin their units; or with despatch riders hunting
for a peripatetic Divisional Headquarters.
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