Some of us will soon be back in the fighting—and jolly glad of it. Others are doomed to remain in the trenches for the rest of their lives—not the trenches of the front-line where they've been strafed by the Hun, but the trenches of physical curtailment where self-pity will launch wave after wave of attack against them. It won't be easy not to get the “wind up.” It'll be difficult to maintain normal cheerfulness. But they're not the men they were before they went to war—out there they've learnt something. They're game. They'll remain soldiers, whatever happens.
THE LADS AWAY
All the lads have gone out to play
At being soldiers, far away;
They won't be back for many a day,
And some won't be back any morning.
All the lassies who laughing were
When hearts were light and lads were here,
Go sad-eyed, wandering hither and there—
They pray and they watch for the morning.
Every house has its vacant bed
And every night, when sounds are dead,
Some woman yearns for the pillowed head
Of him who marched out in the morning.
Of all the lads who've gone out to play
There's some'll return and some who'll stay;
There's some will be back 'most any day—
But some won't wake up in the morning.
II. THE GROWING OF THE VISION
I'm continuing in America the book which I thought out during the golden July and August days when I lay in the hospital in London. I've been here a fortnight; everything that's happened seems unbelievably wonderful, as though it had happened to some one other than myself. It'll seem still more wonderful in a few weeks' time when I'm where I hope I shall be—back in the mud at the Front.
Here's how this miraculous turn of events occurred. When I went before my medical board I was declared unfit for active service for at least two months. A few days later I went in to General Headquarters to see what were the chances of a trip to New York. The officer whom I consulted pulled out his watch, “It's noon now. There's a boat-train leaving Euston in two and a half hours. Do you think you can pack up and make it?”