"I could not stay. They offered me a desk in London, and it was tough to leave the wife and little girls; but I couldn't stay."
At that time he was one of six men in the British Empire who had three times received the "D. S. O." (Distinguished Service Order)—once in South Africa where he enlisted as a private, and twice in France. After five months he was sufficiently recovered from his third wound to report for duty.
What is this spirit, the spirit of the trenches? There is humor in it. Lieutenant Johrens, who returned with me from France, was on the Tuscania when she was sent down by submarine attack. As the destroyer which picked up the boat company of which he was in charge cruised about in the darkness near the scene of the catastrophe, the officers heard singing in the distance. Searching out the spot from which the voices came, they found twenty privates on a catamaran, shouting lustily the refrain of the popular song,
"Where do we go from here, boys?
Where do we go from here?"
The Lieutenant added that a French pastor in Tours on being told the story seemed deeply impressed, but not even slightly amused. The next Sunday, referring to the incident, he said impressively to his sympathetic congregation:
"Our brave allies are not only men of action; they are all men of deep spiritual conviction. In danger their thoughts turn instinctively toward God. As they clung to their frail raft in the darkness of the tempest and the blackness of the night, they searched their hearts, and with the mingled emotions of men facing the vast unknown they sang that glorious old Billy Sunday hymn,
'Where do we go from here, boys?
Where do we go from here?'"
The humor of homesickness makes no pretence, and is unashamed. A chap from Montana came up to the canteen counter behind which I stood, and said,
"Say, did you ever hear the story of the Statue of Liberty?" and I replied,
"Which one?"