We also made an interesting collection of German and English shell-cases. These cases are made of brass, and the four-fives, especially, in the opinion of some people, make very nice rose-bowls when they are polished, with wire arranged inside to hold the blossoms. Weird music could be heard issuing from our dugout at times, when we gave an impromptu concert, by putting several of these shell-cases on a log of wood and playing elaborate tunes on them with a bit of stone.

All this merry-making came to an end, though. One day we received word that the attack was to come off the next morning. Then began the preparations in earnest and the day went with a rush. At this part of the Hindenburg Line, it was very easy to lose one's way, especially at night. The tanks were scheduled to start moving up at ten o'clock. Talbot and the Old Bird, with several men, set out at about eight, and arranged for marks to guide the machines.

We had just reached a part of the Hindenburg Line which was now in our possession, and were near an ammunition dump, when shells began to fall around us. They were not near enough to do us any harm, and we continued our work, when one dropped into the ammunition dump and exploded. In an instant the whole dump was alight. It was like some terrible and giant display of pyrotechnics. Gas shells, Verey lights, and stink bombs filled the air with their nauseous odors. Shells of all sizes blew up and fell in steely splinters. The noise was deafening. Cursing our luck, we waited until it died down into a red, smouldering mass, and then edged up cautiously to continue our work. By this time, Borwick's tank came up, and he emerged, with a broad smile on his face.

"Having a good time?" he asked genially.

There was a frozen silence, excepting for his inane laughter. He made a few more irritating remarks which he seemed to think were very funny, and then he disappeared inside his tank and prepared to follow us. We had gone ahead a couple of hundred yards when we heard bombs exploding, and looking back we saw the tank standing still, with fireworks going off under one of her tracks. Presently the noise ceased, and after waiting a moment we strolled back. As we reached the tank, Borwick and the crew came tumbling out, making the air blue with their language. They had run over a box of bombs, the only thing that had survived the fire in the ammunition dump, and one of the tracks was damaged. To repair it meant several hours' hard work in the cold in unpleasant proximity to the still smouldering dump. Over Talbot's face spread a broad smile.

"Having a good time?" he asked pleasantly of Borwick.

Infuriated growls were his only answer. He moved on with his men, while Borwick and his crew settled down to work.

The night was fortunately dark. They went slowly forward and brought the route almost up to within calling distance of the Germans. The Verey lights, shattering the darkness over No Man's Land, did not disclose them to the enemy. Suddenly, a Boche machine gun mechanically turned its attentions toward the place where they were working. With a tightening of every muscle, Talbot heard the slow whisper of the gun. As it turned to sweep the intervening space between the lines, the whisper rose to a shirring hiss. The men dropped to the ground, flattening themselves into the earth. But Talbot stood still. Now, if ever, was the time when an example would count. If they all dropped to the ground every time a machine gun rattled, the job would never be done. So, hands in his pockets, but with awful "wind up," he waited while the soft patter of the bullets came near and the patter quickened into rain. As it reached him, the rain became a fierce torrent, stinging the top of the parapet behind them as the bullets tore by viciously a few inches above his head. Then as it passed, it dropped into a patter once more and finally dropped away in a whisper. Talbot suddenly realized that his throat was aching, but that he was untouched by the storm. The men slowly got to their feet and continued their work in silence. Although the machine gun continued to spatter bullets near them all through the hours they were working, not once again did the men drop when they heard the whisper begin. The job was finally done and they filed wearily back.

The attack was timed to come off at dawn. An hour before, while it was still as black as pitch, the tanks moved again for their final starting-point. McKnutt's machine was the first to go.

"Cheero, McKnutt," we said as he clambered in. "Good luck!"

The men followed, some through the top and some through the side. The doors and portholes were closed, and in a moment the exhaust began to puff merrily. The tank crawled forward and soon disappeared into the blackness.

She had about fifteen hundred yards to go, parallel with the Hindenburg Line, and several trenches to cross before coming up with the enemy. We had planned that the tanks would take about three quarters of an hour to reach their starting-point, and that soon after they arrived there, the show would begin.

Since it was still dark and the attack had not commenced, McKnutt and his first driver opened the windows in front of them. They looked out into impenetrable gloom. It was necessary to turn their headlights on, and with this help, they crawled along a little more securely. A signal from the driver, and they got into top gear. She bumped along, over shell-holes and mine-craters at the exhilarating speed of about four miles an hour, and then arrived at the first trench to be crossed. It was about ten feet wide with high banks on each side.

"One up!" signals the driver. The gears-men get into first gear, and the tank tilts back as it goes up one side of the trench. Suddenly she starts tipping over, and the driver takes out his clutch and puts on his brake hard. McKnutt yells out, "Hold tight!" and the tank slides gently down with her nose in the bottom of the trench. The driver lets in his clutch again, the tank digs her nose into the other side and pulls herself up slowly, while her tail dips down into the bottom of the trench. Then comes the great strain as she pulls herself bodily out of the trench until she balances on the far side.

It was now no longer safe to run with lights. They were snapped off. Once more the darkness closed around them, blacker than ever. They could no longer find their route, and McKnutt jumped out, walking ahead with the tank lumbering along behind. Twice he lost his way and they were obliged to wait until he found it again. Then, to his intense relief, the moon shone out with a feeble light. It was just enough to illumine faintly the ground before them and McKnutt reentered the tank, and started on.

Their route ran close to the sides of an old quarry and they edged along cautiously. McKnutt, with his eyes glued to the front, decided that they must have already passed the end of the quarry. That would mean that they were not far from the spot where they were to wait for the signal to go into action. The moon had again disappeared behind the clouds, but he did not consider it worth while to get out again. The journey would be over in a few minutes.

Suddenly, his heart took a great dive and he seemed to stop breathing. He felt the tank balance ever so slightly. Staring with aching eyes through the portholes, he saw that they were on the edge of the old quarry, with a forty-foot drop down its steep sides before them. The black depth seemed bottomless. The tank was slipping over. When she shot down they would all be killed from concussion alone.

His heart was pounding so that he could hardly speak. But the driver, too, had seen the danger.

"For God's sake, take out your clutch and put your brake on!" McKnutt yelled, his voice almost drowned by the rattle and roar inside the tank. The man kept his head. As the tail of the tank started tipping up, he managed somehow with the brakes to hold her on the edge. For a second or two, she swayed there. She seemed to be unable to decide whether to kill them or not. The slightest crumbling of the earth or the faintest outside movement against the tank would precipitate them over the edge. The brakes would not hold them for long. Then the driver acted. Slowly he put his gears in reverse, keeping the brake on hard until the engine had taken up the strain. Slowly she moved back until her tail bumped on the ground, and she settled down. Neither McKnutt nor his driver spoke. They pushed back their tin hats and wiped their foreheads.

McKnutt glanced back at the men in the rear of the tank. They, of course, had been unable to see out, and had no idea of what they had escaped. Now that the danger was passed, he felt an unreasonable annoyance that none of them would ever know what he and the driver had gone through in those few moments. Then the feeling passed, he signalled, "Neutral left," the gearsman locked his left track, and the tank swung over, passing safely by the perilous spot.

They settled down now to a snail's pace, shutting off their engine, as the Germans could not be more than one hundred and fifty or two hundred yards away. Running at full speed, the engine would have been heard by them. In a few moments, they arrived at their appointed station. McKnutt glanced at his watch. They had only a few moments to wait. The engine was shut off and they stopped.

The heat inside the tank was oppressive. McKnutt and James opened the top, and crawled out, the men following. They looked around. The first streaks of light were beginning to show in the sky. A heavy silence hung over everything—the silence that always precedes a bombardment. Presumably, only the attacking forces feel this. Even the desultory firing seems to have faded away. All the little ordinary noises have ceased. It is a sickening quiet, so loud in itself that it makes one's heart beat quicker. It is because one is listening so intensely for the guns to break out that all other sounds have lost their significance. One seems to have become all ears—to have no sense of sight or touch or taste or smell. All seem to have become merged in the sense of hearing. The very air itself seems tense with listening. Only the occasional rattle of a machine gun breaks the stillness. Even this passes unnoticed.

Slowly the minute-hand crept round to the half-hour, and the men slipped back into their steel home. Doors were bolted and portholes shut, save for the tiny slits in front of officer and driver, through which they peered. The engine was ready to start. The petrol was on and flooding. They waited quietly. Their heavy breathing was the only sound. The minute-hand reached the half-hour.

With the crash and swish of thousands of shells, the guns smashed the stillness. Instantly, the flash of their explosion lit up the opposite trenches. For a fraction of a second the thought came to McKnutt how wonderful it was that man could produce a sound to which Nature had no equal, either in violence or intensity. But the time was for action and not for reflection.

"Start her up!" yelled out McKnutt.

But the engine would not fire.

"What the devil's the matter?" cried James.

A bit of tinkering with the carburetor, and the engine purred softly. Its noise was drowned in the pandemonium raging around them. James let in the clutch, and the monster moved forward on her errand of destruction.

Although it was not light enough to distinguish forms, the flashes of the shell-fire and the bursts from the shrapnel lit up that part of the Hindenburg Line that lay on the other side of the barrier. One hundred and fifty yards, and the tank was almost on top of the barricade. Bombs were exploding on both sides. McKnutt slammed down the shutters of the portholes in front of him and his driver. "Bullets," he said shortly.

"One came through, I think, sir," James replied. With the portholes shut, there was no chance for bullets to enter now through the little pin-points directly above the slits in the shutters. In order to see through these, it is necessary to place one's eye directly against the cold metal. They are safe, for if a bullet does hit them, it cannot come through, although it may stop up the hole.

Suddenly a dull explosion was heard on the roof of the tank.

"They're bombing us, sir!" cried one of the gunners. McKnutt signalled to him, and he opened fire from his sponson. They plunged along, amid a hail of bullets, while bombs exploded all around them.

McKnutt and James, with that instinctive sense of direction which comes to men who control these machines, felt that they were hovering on the edge of the German trench. Then a sudden flash from the explosion of a huge shell lit up the ground around them, and they saw four or five gray-clad figures, about ten yards away, standing on the parapet hysterically hurling bombs at the machine. They might as well have been throwing pebbles. Scornfully the tank slid over into the wide trench and landed with a crash in the bottom. For a moment she lay there without moving. The Germans thought she was stuck. They came running along thinking to grapple with her. But they never reached her, for at once the guns from both sides opened fire and the Germans disappeared.

The huge machine dragged herself up the steep ten-foot side of the trench. As she neared the top, it seemed as if the engine would not take the final pull. James took out his clutch, put his brake on hard, and raced the engine. Then letting the clutch in with a jerk, the tank pulled herself right on to the point of balance, and tipped slowly over what had been the parapet of the German position.

Now she was in the wire which lay in front of the trench. McKnutt signalled back, "Swing round to the left," parallel to the lay of the line. A moment's pause, and she moved forward relentlessly, crushing everything in her path, and sending out a stream of bullets from every turret to any of the enemy who dared to show themselves above the top of the trench.

At the same time our own troops, who had waited behind the barricade to bomb their way down, from traverse to traverse, rushed over the heap of sandbags, tangled wire, wood, and dead men which barred their way. The moral effect of the tank's success, and the terror which she inspired, cheered our infantry on to greater efforts. The tank crew were, at the time, unaware of the infantry's action, as none of our own men could be seen. The only indication of the fact was the bursting of the bombs which gradually moved from fire bay to fire bay.

The Corporal touched McKnutt on the arm.

"I don't believe our people are keeping up with us, sir," he said. "They seem to have been stopped about thirty yards back."

"All right," McKnutt answered. "We'll turn round."

McKnutt and James opened their portholes to obtain a clearer view. Five yards along to the left, a group of Germans were holding up the advancing British. They had evidently prepared a barricade in case of a possible bombing attack on our part, and this obstacle, together with a fusillade of bombs which met them, prevented our troops from pushing on. McKnutt seized his gun and pushed it through the mounting, but found that he could not swing round far enough to get an aim on the enemy. But James was in a better position. He picked the gray figures off, one by one, until the bombing ceased and our own men jumped over the barricade and came down among the dead and wounded Germans.

Then a sudden and unexplainable sense of disaster caused McKnutt to look round. One of his gunners lay quite still on the floor of the tank, his back against the engine, and a stream of blood trickling down his face. The Corporal who stood next to him pointed to the sights in the turret and then to his forehead, and McKnutt realized that a bullet must have slipped in through the small space, entering the man's head as he looked along the barrel of his gun. There he lay, along one side of the tank between the engine and the sponson. The Corporal tried to get in position to carry on firing with his own gun, but the dead body impeded his movements.

There was only one thing to do. The Corporal looked questioningly at McKnutt and pointed to the body. The officer nodded quickly, and the left gearsman and the Corporal dragged the body and propped it up against the door. Immediately the door flew open. The back of the corpse fell down and half the body lay hanging out, with its legs still caught on the floor. With feverish haste they lifted the legs and threw them out, but the weight of the body balanced them back again through the still open door. The men were desperate. With a tremendous heave they turned the dead man upside down, shoved the body out and slammed the door shut. They were just in time. A bomb exploded directly beneath the sponson, where the dead body had fallen. To every man in the tank came a feeling of swift gratitude that the bombs had caught the dead man and not themselves.

They ploughed across another trench without dropping into the bottom, for it was only six feet wide. Daylight had come by now and the enemy was beginning to find that his brave efforts were of no avail against these monsters of steel.

All this time the German guns had not been silent. McKnutt's tank crunched across the ground amid a furious storm of flying earth and splinters. The strain was beginning to be felt. Although one is protected from machine-gun fire in a tank, the sense of confinement is, at times, terrible. One does not know what is happening outside his little steel prison. One often cannot see where the machine is going. The noise inside is deafening; the heat terrific. Bombs shatter on the roof and on all sides. Bullets spatter savagely against the walls. There is an awful lack of knowledge; a feeling of blind helplessness at being cooped up. One is entirely at the mercy of the big shells. If a shell hits a tank near the petrol tank, the men may perish by fire, as did Gould, without a chance of escape. Going down with your ship seems pleasant compared to burning up with your tank. In fighting in the open, one has, at least, air and space.

McKnutt, however, was lucky. They could now see the sunken road before them which was their objective. Five-nines were dropping around them now. It was only a matter of moments, it seemed, when they would be struck.

"Do you think we shall make it?" McKnutt asked James.

"We may get there, but shall we get back? That's the question, sir."

McKnutt did not answer. They had both had over two years' experience of the accuracy of the German artillery. And they did not believe in miracles. But they had their orders. They must simply do their duty and trust to luck.

They reached the sunken road. The tank was swung around. Their orders were to reach their objective and remain there until the bombers arrived. McKnutt peered out. No British were in sight, and he snapped his porthole shut. Grimly they settled down to wait.

The moments passed. Each one seemed as if it would be their last. Would the infantry never come? Would there be any sense in just sitting there until a German shell annihilated them if the infantry never arrived? Had they been pushed back by a German rush? Should he take it upon himself to turn back? McKnutt's brain whirled.

Then, after hours, it seemed, of waiting, around the corner of a traverse, he saw one of the British tin hats. Nothing in the world could have been a happier sight. A great wave of relief swept over him. Three or four more appeared. Realizing that they, too, had reached their objective, they stopped and began to throw up a rough form of barricade. More men poured in. The position was consolidated, and there was nothing more for the tank to do.

They swung round and started back. Two shells dropped about twenty yards in front of them. For a moment McKnutt wondered whether it would be well to change their direction. "No, we'll keep right on and chance it," he said aloud. The next moment a tremendous crash seemed to lift the tank off the ground. Black smoke and flying particles filled the tank. McKnutt and James looked around expecting to see the top of the machine blown off. But nothing had happened inside, and no one was injured. Although shells continued to fall around them and a German machine gun raged at them, they got back safely.



Brigade Headquarters, where McKnutt reported, was full of expectancy. Messages were pouring in over the wires. The men at the telephones were dead beat, but cool and collected.

"Any news of the other 'busses?" McKnutt asked eagerly. The Buzzers shook their heads wearily. He rushed up to a couple of men who were being carried to a dressing-station.

"Do you fellows know how the tanks made out?" he asked.

One of them had seen two of the machines on the other side of the German line, he said. In answer to the questions which were fired at him he could only say that the tanks had pushed on beyond the German front line.

Then on the top of the hill, against the sky-line, they saw a little group of three or four men. James recognized them.

"Why, there's Sergeant Browning and Mr. Borwick, sir," he said. "What's happened to their tank, I wonder?" He and McKnutt hurried over to meet them.

Borwick smiled coolly.

"Hullo!" he said in his casual manner.

"What's happened to your 'bus?" "What did you do?" was fired at him.

"We got stuck in the German wire, and the infantry got ahead of us," he said. "We pushed on, and fell into a nest of three machine guns. They couldn't hurt us, of course, and the Boches finally ran away. We knocked out about ten of them, and just as we were going on and were already moving, we suddenly started twisting around in circles. What do you think had happened? A trench mortar had got us full in one of our tracks, and the beastly thing broke. So we all tumbled out and left her there."

"Didn't you go on with the infantry?" asked McKnutt.

"No. They'd reached their objective by that time," Borwick replied, "so we saved the tank guns, and I pinched the clock. Then we strolled back, and here we are," he concluded.

Talbot joined the group as he finished.

"But where's the rest of your crew?" he asked.

Borwick said quietly: "Jameson and Corporal Fiske got knocked out coming back." He lit a cigarette and puffed at it.

There was silence for a moment.

Then Talbot said, "Bad luck; have you got their pay-books?"

"No, I forgot them," Borwick answered.

But his Sergeant handed over the little brown books which were the only tangible remains of two men who had gone into action that morning. The pay-books contained two or three pages on which were jotted down their pay, with the officer's signature. They had been used as pocket-books, and held a few odd letters which the men had received a few days before. Talbot had often been given the pay-books of men in his company who were killed, but he never failed to be affected when he discovered the letters and little trifles which had meant so much to the men who had carried them, and which now would mean so much to those whom they had left behind.

In silence they went back to McKnutt's tank and sat down, waiting for news. Scraps of information were beginning to trickle in.

"Have gained our objective in X Wood. Have not been counter-attacked."

"Cannot push on owing to heavy machine-gun fire from C——."

"Holding out with twenty men in trench running north from Derelict Wood. Can I have reinforcements?"

These were the messages pouring in from different points on the lines of attack. Sometimes the messages came in twos and threes. Sometimes there were minutes when only a wild buzzing could be heard and the men at the telephones tried to make the buzzing intelligible.

The situation cleared up finally, however. Our troops had, apparently, gained their objectives along the entire line to the right. On the left the next Brigade had been hung up by devastating machine-gun fire. As McKnutt and Talbot waited around for news and fresh orders, one of their men hurried down and saluted.

He brought the news that the other three tanks had returned, having reached their objectives. Two had but little opposition and the infantry had found no difficulty in gaining their points of attack. The third tank, however, had had three men wounded at a "pill-box." These pill-boxes are little concrete forts which the German had planted along his line. The walls are of ferro concrete, two to three feet thick. As the tank reached the pill-box, two Germans slipped out of the rear door. Three of the tank crew clambered down and got inside the pill-box. In a moment the firing from inside ceased, and presently the door flew open. Two British tank men, dirty and grimy, escorting ten Germans, filed out. The Germans had their hands above their heads, and when ordered to the rear they went with the greatest alacrity. One of the three Englishmen was badly wounded; the other two were only slightly injured, but they wandered down to the dressing-station, with the hope that "Blighty" would soon welcome them.

Although Talbot had his orders to hold the tanks in readiness in case they were needed, no necessity arose, and after a few hours' waiting, the Major sent word to him to start the tanks back to the embankment, there to be kept for the next occasion. Better still, the men were to be taken back to B—— in the motor lorries, just as they had been after the first battle. Water, comparative quiet, blankets,—these were the luxuries that lay before them.

As he sat crowded into the swaying motor lorry that lurched back along the shell-torn road to B——, Talbot slipped his hand into his pocket. He touched a cheque-book, a package of cigarettes, and a razor. Then he smiled. They were the final preparations he had made that morning before he went into action. After all he had not needed them, but one never could tell, one might be taken prisoner. One needed no such material preparations against the possibility of death, but a prisoner—that was different.

The cheque-book had been for use in a possible gray prison camp in the land of his enemies. Cheques would some time or other reach his English bank and his people would know that he was, at least, alive. The cigarettes were to keep up his courage in the face of whatever disaster might befall him.

And the razor? Most important of all.

The razor was to keep, bright and untarnished, the traditions and prestige of the British Army!



VIII

REST AND DISCIPLINE

We stayed in that region of the Front for a few more weeks, preparing for any other task that might be demanded of us. One day the Battalion received its orders to pack up, to load the tanks that were left over, and to be ready for its return to the district in which we had spent the winter.

We entrained on a Saturday evening at A——, and arrived at St.-P—— at about ten o'clock on Sunday night. From there a twelve-mile march lay before us to our old billets in B——. As may well be imagined, the men, though tired, were in high spirits. We simply ate up the distance, and the troops disguised their fatigue by singing songs. There were two which appeared to be favorites on this occasion.

One, to the tune of "The Church's One Foundation," ran as follows:—

"We are Fred Karno's[1] Army, The ragtime A.S.C.,[2] We cannot work, we do not fight, So what ruddy use are we? And when we get to Berlin, The Kaiser he will say, Hoch, hoch, mein Gott! What a ruddy rotten lot, Is the ragtime A.S.C."

The other was a refrain to the tune of a Salvation Army hymn, "When the Roll is called up Yonder":—

"When you wash us in the water, That you washed your dirty daughter, Oh! then we will be much whiter! We'll be whiter than the whitewash on the wall."

Eventually the companies arrived in the village at all hours of the morning. No one was up. We saw that the men received their meals, which had been prepared by the cooks who had gone ahead in motor lorries. They did not spend much time over the food, for in less than half an hour "K" billets—the same Hospice de Ste. Berthe—were perfectly quiet. We then wandered away with our servants, to be met at each of our houses by hastily clad landladies, with sleep in their eyes and smoking lamps or guttering candles in their hands.

The next morning the Company paraded at half-past nine, and the day was spent in reforming sections, in issuing new kits to the men, and in working the rosters for the various courses. On Tuesday, just as breakfast was starting, an orderly brought a couple of memorandums from Battalion Orderly Room for McKnutt and Borwick.

No one watched them read the chits, but Talbot, glancing up from his plate, saw a look on Borwick's face. It was a look of the purest joy.

"What is it?" he said.

"Leave, my God!" replied Borwick; "and McKnutt's got it too."

"When are you going? To-day?" shouted the Old Bird.

"Yes; there's a car to take us to the station in a quarter of an hour."

They both left their unfinished breakfasts and tore off to their billets. There it was but a matter of moments to throw a few things into their packs. No one ever takes any luggage when going on leave. They tore back to the mess to leave instructions for their servants, and we strolled out en masse to see the lucky fellows off.

The box-body drew away from where we were standing. We watched it grow smaller and smaller down the long white road, and turned back with regrets and pleasure in our hearts. With regrets, that we ourselves were not the lucky ones, and knowing that for some of us leave would never come; with pleasure, because one is always glad that a few of the deserving reap a small share of their reward.

Then, strolling over to the Parade Ground, we heard the "Five Minutes" sounding. Some dashed off to get their Sam Brownes, others called for their servants to wipe a few flecks of dust from their boots and puttees.

When the "Fall In" began, the entire Company was standing "At Ease" on the Parade Ground. As the last note of the call sounded, the whole parade sprang to "Attention," and the Major, who had been standing on the edge of the field, walked forward to inspect.

Every morning was spent in this manner, except for those who had special courses to follow. We devoted all our time and attention to "Forming Fours" in as perfect a manner as possible; to saluting with the greatest accuracy and fierceness; and to unwearying repetition of every movement and detail, until machinelike precision was attained.

All that we were doing then is the very foundation and essence of good discipline. Discipline is the state to which a man is trained, in order that under all circumstances he shall carry out without secondary reasoning any order that may be given him by a superior. There is nothing of a servile nature in this form of obedience. Each man realizes that it is for the good of the whole. By placing his implicit confidence in the commands of one of a higher rank than his own, he gives an earnest of his ability to himself command at some future time. It is but another proof of the old adage, that the man who obeys least is the least fitted to command.



When this war started, certain large formations, with the sheer lust for fighting in their blood, did not, while being formed, realize the absolute necessity of unending drill and inspection. Their first cry was, "Give us a rifle, a bayonet, and a bomb, show us how to use them, and we will do the rest." Acting upon this idea, they flung themselves into battle, disregarding the iron rules of a preliminary training. At first their very impetus and courage carried them over incredible obstacles. But after a time, and as their best were killed off, the original blaze died down, and the steady flame of ingrained discipline was not there to take the place of burning enthusiasm. The terrible waste and useless sacrifice that ensued showed only too plainly that even the greatest individual bravery is not enough.

In this modern warfare there are many trials and experiences unimagined before, which wear down the actual will-power of the men who undergo them. When troops are forced to sit in a trench under the most terrific shell-fire, the nerve-racking noise, the sight of their comrades and their defences being blown to atoms, and the constant fear that they themselves will be the next to go, all deprive the ordinary mind of vital initiative. Having lost the active mental powers that a human being possesses, they are reduced to the level of machines. The officers and non-commissioned officers, on whom the responsibility of leadership rests, have that spur to maintain their equilibrium, but the private soldiers, who have themselves only to think of, are the most open to this devastating influence. If these machines are to be controlled, as they must be, by an exterior intelligence, they must obey automatically, and if in the past automatic obedience has not been implanted, there is nothing to take its place.

The only means by which to obtain inherent response to a given order is so to train a man in minute details, by constant, inflexible insistence on perfection, that it becomes part of his being to obey without thinking.

It must not be presumed that, in obtaining this almost inhuman reaction, all independent qualities are obliterated. For, though a man's mind is adjusted to carrying out, without questioning, any task that is demanded of him, yet in the execution of this duty he is allowed the full scope of his invention and initiative.

Thus, by this dull and unending routine, we laid the foundation of that inevitable success toward which we were slowly working.

When the Company dismissed, the Major, Talbot, and the Old Bird walked over to lunch together.

"Well, it's a great war, isn't it?" said the Major, turning to the other two.

"It's very nice to have got through a couple of shows, sir," replied Talbot. "What do you think about it, Old Bird?"

"Well, of course, war is all very well for those who like it. But give me the Base every time," answered the Old Bird, true to his reputation. Then, turning to the Major with his most ingratiating smile, he said, "By the way, sir, what about a few days in Boulogne?"

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A late, third-rate English pantomime producer.

[2] Stands for Army Service Corps, and its equivalent in the American Army is the Quartermaster's Corps.



IX

A PHILOSOPHY OF WAR

It has often been observed that if this war is to end war for all time, and if all the sacrifices and misery and suffering will help to prevent any recurrence of them, then it is well worth while.

In these days of immediate demands and quick results, this question is too vague and too far-reaching to bring instant consolation. Apart from that, too, it cannot decide whether any war, however great, can ever abolish the natural and primitive fighting instinct in man.

The source from which we must draw the justification for our optimism lies much nearer to hand. We must regard the effect that warring life has already produced upon each individual member of the nations who are and who are not engaged in it.

At the very heart of it is the effect on the man who is actually fighting. Take the case of him who before the war was either working in a factory, who was a clerk in a business house, or who was nothing at all beyond the veriest loafer and bar-lounger. To begin with, he was perhaps purely selfish. The foundation of his normal life was self-protection. Whether worthless or worthy, whether hating or respecting his superiors, the private gain and comfort for himself and his was the object of his existence. He becomes a soldier, and that act alone is a conversion. His wife and children are cared for, it is true; but he himself, for a shilling a day, sells to his country his life, his health, his pleasures, and his hopes for the future. To make good measure he throws in cheerfulness, devotion, philosophy, humour, and an unfailing kindness. One man, for instance, sells up three grocery businesses in the heart of Lancashire, an ambition which it has taken him ten years to accomplish. Without a trace of bitterness he divorces himself from the routine of a lifetime, and goes out to France to begin life again at the very bottom of a new ladder. He who for years had many men under him is now under all, and receives, unquestioningly, orders which in a different sphere he had been accustomed to give. Apart from the mere letter of obedience and discipline he gains a spirit of devotion and self-sacrifice, which turns the bare military instrument into a divine virtue. He may, for instance, take up the duties of an officer's servant. Immediately he throws himself whole-heartedly into a new form of selfless generosity, which leads him to a thousand ways of care and forethought, that even the tenderest woman could hardly conceive. The man who receives this unwavering devotion can only accept it with the knowledge that no one can deserve it, and that it is greater gain to him who gives than to him who takes.

What life of peace is there that produces this god-like fibre in the plainest of men? Why, indeed, is it produced in the life of war? It is because in war sordidness and petty worries are eliminated; because the one great and ever-present fear, the fear of death, reduces all other considerations to their proper values. The actual fear of death is always present, but this fear itself cannot be sordid when men can meet it of their own free will and with the most total absence of cringing or of cowardice.

In commercial rivalry a man will sacrifice the friend of years to gain a given sum, which will insure him increased material comforts. In war a man will deliberately sacrifice the life for which he wanted those comforts, to save perhaps a couple of men who have no claim on him whatsoever. He who before feared any household calamity now throws himself upon a live bomb, which, even though he might escape himself, will without his action kill other men who are near it. This deed loses none of its value because of the general belief among soldiers that life is cheap. Other men's lives are cheap. One's own life is always very dear.

One of the most precious results has been the resurrection of the quality of admiration. The man who before the war said, "Why is he my master?" is now only too glad to accept a leader who is a leader indeed. He has learned that as his leader cannot do without him, so he cannot do without his leader, and although each is of equal importance in the scheme of affairs, their positions in the scheme are different. He has learned that there is a higher equality than the equality of class: it is the equality of spirit.

This same feeling is reflected, more especially among the leaders of the men, in the complete disappearance of snobbishness. No such artificial imposition can survive in a life where inherent value automatically finds its level; where a disguise which in peace-time passed as superiority, now disintegrates when in contact with this life of essentials. For war is, above all, a reduction to essentials. It is the touchstone which proves the qualities of our youth's training. All those pleasures that formed the gamut of a young man's life either fall away completely or find their proper place. Sport, games, the open-air life, have taught him that high cheerfulness, through failure or success, which makes endurance possible. But the complicated, artificial pleasures of ordinary times have receded into a dim, unspoken background. The wholesomeness of the existence that he now leads has taught him to delight in the most simple and natural of things. This throwing aside of the perversions and fripperies of an over-civilization has forced him to regard them with a disgust that can never allow him to be tempted again by their inducements of delight and dissipation. The natural, healthy desires which a man is sometimes inclined to indulge in are no longer veiled under a mask of hypocrisy. They are treated in a perfectly outspoken fashion as the necessary accompaniments to a hard, open-air life, where a man's vitality is at its best. In consequence of this, and as the result of the deepening of man's character which war inevitably produces, the sense of adventure and mystery which accompanied the fulfilment of these desires has disappeared, and with it to a great extent the desires themselves have assumed a far less importance.

In peace, and especially in war, the young man's creed is casualness. Not the casualness of carelessness, but that which comes from the knowledge that up to each given point he has done his best. It is this fundamental peace of mind which comes to a soldier that forms the beauty of his life. The order received must be obeyed in its exact degree, neither more nor less; and the responsibility, though great, is clearly defined. Each man must use his individual intelligence within the scope of the part assigned to him. The responsibility differs in kind, but not in degree, and the last link of the chain is as important as the first. There can be no shirking or shifting, and, knowing this, each task is finished, rounded out, and put away. One might think that this made thought mechanical: but it is mechanical only in so far as each man's intelligence is concentrated on his own particular duty, and each part working in perfect order contributes to the unison through which the whole machine develops its power. Thus the military life induces in men a clearer and more accurate habit of thought, and teaches each one to do his work well and above all to do his own work only.

From this very simplicity of life, which brings out a calmness of mind and that equable temperament that minor worries can no longer shake, springs the mental leisure which gives time for other and unaccustomed ideas. Men who wittingly, time and again, have faced but escaped death, will inevitably begin to think what death may mean. As the first lessons of obedience teach each man that he needs a leader to pass through a certain crisis, so the crisis of death, where man must pass alone, demands a still higher Leader. With the admission that no man is self-sufficient, that sin of pride, which is the strongest barrier between a man and his God, falls away. He is forced, if only in self-defence, to recognize that faith in some all-sufficient Power is the only thing that will carry him through. If he could cut away the thousand sins of thought, man would automatically find himself at faith. It is the central but often hidden point of our intelligence; and although there are a hundred roads that lead to it, they may be completely blocked. The clean flame of the disciplined life burns away the rubbish that chokes these roads, and faith becomes a nearer and more constant thing.

The sadness of war lies in the loss of actual personalities, but it is only by means of these losses that this surrender can be attained.

It must not be thought that faith comes overnight as a free gift. It is a long and slow process of many difficult steps. There may be first the actual literal crumbling, unknown in peace-time, of one's solid surroundings, to be repeated perhaps again and again until the old habit of reliance upon them is uprooted. Then comes the realization that this life at the front has but two possible endings. The first is to be so disabled that a man's fighting days are over. The other is death. Instant death rather than a slow death from wounds. Every man hopes for a wound which will send him home to England. That, however, is only a respite, as his return to France follows upon his convalescence. The other most important step is the loss of one's friends. It is not the fact of actually seeing them killed, for in the chaos and tumult of a battle the mind hardly registers such impressions. One's only feeling is the purely primitive one of relief, that it is another and not one's self. It is only afterwards, when the excitement is over, and a man realizes that again there is a space of life, for him, but not for his friend, that the loneliness and the loss are felt. He then says to himself, "Why am I spared when many better men have gone?" At first resentment swallows up all other emotions. In time, when this bitterness begins to pass, the belief that somehow this loss is of some avail, carries him a little farther on the road to faith. This all comes to the man who before the war believed that the world was made for his pleasure, and who treated life from that standpoint. All that he wanted he took without asking. Now, all that he has he gives without being asked.

Woman, too, gives more than herself. She gives her men, her peace of mind and all that makes her life worth living. The man after all may have little hope, but while he is alive he has the daily pleasures of health, vitality, excitement, and a thousand interests. A woman has but a choice of sorrows: the sorrow of unbearable suspense or the acceptance of the end.

Yet it needed this war to show again to women what they could best do in life: to love their men, bear their children, care for the sick and suffering, and learn to endure. It has taught them also to accept from man what he is able or willing to give, and to admit a higher claim than their own. They have been forced to put aside the demands and exactions which they felt before were their right, and to accept loneliness and loss without murmur or question.

A woman who loses her son loses the supreme reason of her existence; and yet the day after the news has come, she goes back to her work for the sons of other women. If she has more sons to give she gives them, and faces again the eternal suspense that she has lived through before. The younger women, who in times of peace would have looked forward to an advantageous and comfortable marriage, will now marry men whom they may never see again after the ten days' honeymoon is over, and will unselfishly face the very real possibility of widowhood and lonely motherhood. They have had to learn the old lesson that work for others is the only cure for sorrow, and they have learned too that it is the only cure for all those petty worries and boredoms which assailed them in times of peace. If they have learned this, then again one may say that war is worth while.

What effect has the war had upon those countries who in the beginning were not engaged in it? The United States, for instance, has for three years been an onlooker. The people of that country have had every opportunity to view, in their proper perspectives, the feelings and changes brought about among the men and women of the combatant countries. At first, the enormous casualties, the sufferings and the sorrow, led them to believe that nothing was worth the price they would have to pay, were they to enter into the lists. For in the beginning, before that wonderful philosophy of spirit and cheerfulness of outlook arose, and before the far-reaching effects of the sacrifice of loved ones could be perceived, there seemed to be little reason or right for such a train of desolation. They were perfectly justified, too, in thinking this, when insufficient time had elapsed to enable them to judge of the immense, sweeping, beneficial effects that this struggle has produced in the moral fibre and stamina of the nations engaged.

It must be remembered that the horrors of the imagination are far worse than the realities. The men who fight and the women who tend their wounds suffer mentally far less than those who paint the pictures in their minds, from data which so very often are grossly exaggerated. One must realize that the hardships of war are merely transient. Men suffer untold discomforts, and yet, when these sufferings are over and mind and body are at ease for a while, they are completely forgotten. The only mark they leave is the disinclination to undergo them again. But on those who do not realize them in their actuality, they cause a far more terrifying effect.

Now, others, as well, have discovered that war's advantages outweigh so much its losses. They who with their own eyes had seen the wonderful fortitude with which men stand pain, and the amazing submission with which women bear sorrow, returned full of zeal and enthusiasm, to carry the torch of this uplifting flame to their own countrymen.

Others will realize, too, that although one may lose one's best, yet one's worst is made better. The women will find that the characters of their men will become softened. The clear-cut essentials of a life of war must make the mind of man direct. It may be brutal in its simplicity, but it is clear and frank. Yet to counteract this, the continual sight of suffering bravely borne, the deep love and humility that the devotion of others unconsciously produces, bring about this charity of feeling, this desire to forgive and this moderation in criticism, which is so marked in those who have passed through the strenuous, searing realities of war. Since the thirty pieces of silver, no minted coin in the world has bought so much as has the King's shilling of to-day.

THE END



The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U.S.A