The Valiant Spirit
After marching and fighting nearly every day we are all feeling like veterans now, and we are ready to keep the ball rolling for just as long as it takes to give the Kaiser’s lads a lesson in soldiering that is likely to be remembered in their precious Fatherland so long as there are Germans alive. We are not kidding ourselves about what we have before us, but we are bracing ourselves for it, and we will certainly put our best foot forward and get our backs into the work as you would expect British soldiers to do. This is going to be the biggest thing we’ve ever taken on, and there’ll be many an English home in mourning before it’s through; but you simply must make up your minds to face it as bravely as we are facing it, because that’s the only way to win, and we’re out to win at any price. We can’t and we won’t allow the Germans to get the best of us in this fight, and they will have to trample on our dead bodies first before they get a chance of trampling on our flag, as they say they will. The dead won’t all be Britons, and we have no doubt about who’s going to win, if it takes us a century to do it: Private S. Hobson.