We went on. I looked back, Makand Singh was making his careful way
through the mud; the horses were being led to a stable. The Cross
stood alone.
CHAPTER XXVIII
SIR JOHN FRENCH
The next day I was taken along the English front, between the first
and the second line of trenches, from Bethune, the southern extremity
of the line, the English right flank, to the northern end of the line
just below Ypres. In a direct line the British front at that time
extended along some twenty-seven miles. But the line was irregular,
and I believe was really well over thirty.
I have never been in an English trench. I have been close enough to
the advance trenches to be shown where they lay, and to see the slight
break they make in the flat country. I was never in a dangerous
position at the English front, if one excepts the fact that all of
that portion of the country between the two lines of trenches is
exposed to shell fire.
No shells burst near me. Bethune was being intermittently shelled, but
as far as I know not a shell fell in the town while I was there. I
lunched on a hill surrounded by batteries, with the now celebrated
towns of Messines and Wytschaete just across a valley, so that one
could watch shells bursting over them. And still nothing threatened my
peace of mind or my physical well-being.
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