L
France June 7,1918
Here's a glorious summer evening—the end of a perfect day, during which I have done my share in capturing two German spies, who now repose unrestfully in our guard-room.
This morning, when I was leading a hundred mounted men along a road, a terrible thing happened. The road was narrow and on one side of it motor-lorries were standing; on the other side was a little unfenced river. Suddenly and without warning, tearing down the hill ahead of us, came the enemy. The enemy consisted of a pair of mules harnessed to a heavy iron roller. The roller caught my lead-driver and threw him and his two horses to the ground, then it charged on into the mass behind us. Miraculously no bones were broken; we all have nine lives. Those mokes have put us up to a new trick for dispersing enemy cavalry which ought to be effective. Believe me, two mad mules, going thirty miles an hour with an iron roller behind them, are utterly demoralizing. It is impossible for any cavalry in the world to withstand them.
You don't know, can't guess, how letters from home buck me up and keep the lamp of my ideals still burning. There are moments when the mere mechanical side of warfare fills one's mind with an infinite depression. One sees men doing splendid acts, day in day out, like automatons animated by the spring of duty. One almost forgets that there is any human element of choice in the matter, or a difference between fighting and fighting well. When your pages come, I remember—remember that just such affections and human ties bind the hearts of all who are out here to life. I begin to see my chaps as personalities again and not as only soldiers.
Outside the chaps are singing “O my, I don't want to die; I want to go home.” Now they've changed to “Take me Over to Blighty.”