.

(p.

093) PLOEGSTEERT--A LULL IN OPERATIONS.
_July to December, 1915._ Leave in London during the war never appealed to me.

I always felt like a fish out of water.

When I went to concerts and theatres, all the time amid the artistic gaiety of the scene I kept thinking of the men in the trenches, their lonely vigils, their dangerous working parties, and the cold rain and mud in which their lives were passed.
And I thought too of the wonderful patrol kept up on the dark seas, by heroic and suffering men who guarded the life and liberty of Britain.
The gaiety seemed to be a hollow mockery.