He was a fatalist like all who have lived long in Eastern countries. What he had above all was a powerful control of himself and a sovereign contempt for danger.
He had an absolutely definite conviction that he would be killed in the next attack. He had so thoroughly accustomed himself to the idea that as a result he had made all arrangements and now awaited the hour, in the meanwhile doing his duty as a commander honorably and simply.
One evening I went to greet him at his cantonment at Froissy—he was going on leave the next day—I asked him, among other things, if it would be agreeable to him, if I used his horses while he was gone.
“My horses? I have no further use for them. They can’t follow me through the trenches and barbed wire—to the front; coming back ... they’ll bring me in a canvas. They’ll serve my successor.”
It would have been perfectly useless to protest.
After a moment of silence when he seemed to be keenly interested in the ripples of the water in the canal, he went on:
“I’m going on leave to-morrow, to bid good-by to mine. That will be the last. What are you doing this evening?”
“Nothing, Commander.”
“Do you want to make a tour of the sector with me?”
“At your orders, Commander.”