I was taken by my son-in-law, Captain Williams Ellis, and a life-long
friend, Lord Ruthven, then the Master of Ruthven, and chief Staff
Officer of the Guards Division, into the first trench-line opposite the
Aubers Ridge, and incidentally to view some of the worst and wettest
trenches on the whole front, at the moment held in part by my son-in-
law's regiment, the Welsh Guards. My guides naturally took me up a
communication-trench, named "Fleet Street," where one was always up to
one's knees in water and sometimes over them. They brought me back,
however, by Drury Lane, which was a somewhat drier street, also
appropriate to _The Spectator_. Here again I will quote from my
Diary:
When we emerged from the end of the Drury Lane communication-trench
upon the Route de Tilleloi, we proceeded down that excellent road,
discoursing on a hundred war topics. Suddenly, however, we came upon a
strange spectacle,--a row of men with their backs to the trench-line,
walking with extreme slowness and seriousness, in the most strict
alignment, both as regards their front and the distances between them,
across a piece of muddy pasture. The sun was just about to set, but the
light was good and we could see in this row of intent backs that there
was a subaltern in the middle and about eight or nine men on each side
of him.
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