Imagine then, after having had experience with the killing and maiming of strong men; after having seen young boys mangled and dying; heard the pitiful cry of lonely, wounded laddies from the blackness of No Man's Land at night, the gasp for "mother" from some expiring stalwart; the stench; the filth—ah God! how I sweated with horror at the thought of being sent into it again. Yet, thank God, I hold the respect of my surviving comrades, and those in Valhalla will welcome "Bobbie," when he joins them.
A letter from one of my officers that reached me in the hospital—just a short pencil-written message—is my greatest treasure on earth. Knowing to the full how fearful I always was in action, and how that constant dread was ever present, I show it to few. I am utterly undeserving of such a message from such a man.
Courage is no greater in one nation than in another. Among French, Italian, Russian, Canadian, Anzac or British, human self-sacrifice is about equal. Bravery is the monopoly of none, and bravery has so many different sides that it cannot be defined.
I have seen boys, brought up in refined homes, gentle sweet-faced laddies—the last people in the world one would associate with soldiers—rise to heights of the most superb self-sacrifice. Their very refinement has sent them into the jaws of hell with pale faces and horror-stricken eyes, but the mighty spirit has carried them through.
You, mothers or sisters, who fear for your boy, because he is timid, or because he has never left your side, cease troubling your hearts. This conflict demands more than the physical courage of the animal, and the timid man often turns out the very bravest in action.
But back to our campaigning. The order was given to the column to move off, and soon nothing was heard but the trudging of feet. Marching over rough cobbled roads, pock-marked with shell holes, is not conducive to conversation. We met small groups of Tommies on their way to rest. The wonder of it! Plastered with mud, scarcely able to walk from sheer fatigue, they joshed us unmercifully, telling us with grim humor what we were in for. Whole platoons from the regiments of these men lay out in No Man's Land, never to hear the word of command again, yet their comrades who survived had the stomach to crack jokes at our expense. And then came a bunch of the guards. Cut to ribbons at La Bassée, only a day or so before, yet here were the survivors, tired out as they must be, marching along to the music of a few mouth-organs, with that little swaggering swing of the shoulders—"a touch of the London swank."
Dear reader, when some skeptical anti-British friend asks why France should be called upon to do it all, please tell them that the British Guards Brigade has been remade no less than twenty-five times since the war began. Not reinforced, but REMADE—new men, new equipment, new everything.
How could we see all this, is asked, if it was dark. Out in France, near the firing line, flares and searchlights are continually lighting up the whole country side.
Ambulances with their moaning freight would roll past us. The sight of these again caused my heart to tighten, as though clutched by some big hand. Their number was appalling, and so near to the firing line were they, that we knew the fighting was terribly severe.
Still, I was not given much time to let my feelings of horror work on me. There was work to be done. No sooner had the last ambulance passed us than we began to click casualties. I was despatched with different messages up and down the column. Round the corner we swung. Wh-o-o-f! Crump! a big one landed just over the heads of the leading platoon. Woo-oo-oo! screamed a "coal box" (5.9 shell), landing and exploding with a mighty rumble only a few yards away from the major.