These men of ours were in a very awkward position, almost hopeless, and no chances could be taken, but Taylor was annoyed with the bomber for killing him, although there was nothing else to be done. He seemed too brave to die. Taylor also told me, when he was in our dugout at the battery position dead beat, that he saw a German badly wounded being attended by one of our R. A. M. C. men. The German was begging the Red Cross chap to let him die for his country.
I am merely telling you these things in order to let you see what impressions I got. I hope that you will not think that I am becoming a pacifist. But even if the Germans have taught our men to hate, I hope that we will not be responsible for teaching the fellows over here that sort of thing. Many of them will learn soon enough. Besides, I am not sure that it is advisable for us to do it.
The next day I met the Admiral and took him out to my friends at Chestnut Hill. M——'s mother, a hopeless Anglophile, fell for him at once. He amused us all at dinner, and then we asked him to go with us to the hotel to dance. He came and stayed with us until midnight. A—— liked him very much and spent the whole evening, or what was left of Saturday night, talking to him, ignoring the wonderful music that was enticing us all to dance. On Monday he came with me to Bethlehem. I took him home to tea, and my landlady, an English girl, was very thrilled, and was perfectly overcome when he bowed to her, and shook her warmly by the hand. She brought tea up, and stayed to gossip a little, and they commenced discussing Yarmouth or some other place that they both knew.
I discussed the "hate" business with the Admiral, but he seemed to think that it could not be helped and that perhaps the men made better fighters if they felt furious. So perhaps after another dose of France and "Flounders" I may feel the same.
At the moment in Bethlehem the people are preparing for a trying time. They are convinced that something is going on in France about which they know nothing. They are sure that the boys are in it. They are appreciating to the full the wonderful work being done at Ypres by our men. Having been ordered to wear uniform I am astonished at the number of people who greet me. As I walk along I am constantly greeted with "Good evening, Captain." What charming manners the American working man has when you are not employing him!
Yesterday I was going up the street in uniform when two small boys stopped making mud pies and, after looking at me with great pleasure, one said "Hello, Horn Blow Man!"
I hope that I am not entirely wrong about the hate business, but I always feel that in the same way that you hide love from the rest of the world because you are proud of it, so you hide hate because you are ashamed of it.
If a Frenchman developed hate for his theme in propaganda he'd get away with it. But American people know that we are merely like themselves, too lazy and good natured to develop a really efficient form of hatred.