Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur
SAME DATE.
Everyone here has been so kind about my French decoration. I feel quite ashamed that such a thing should have come to me, when so many others round me have done so well. I don't understand it.
The star is of white and green enamel and the ribbon is scarlet silk.
It is exactly seven years yesterday since I joined this Battalion.
In two letters to friends, written some weeks later, the following passages occur:—
There are many in the Battalion who have deserved marks of approval for service much more than I, and in particular those who have made the supreme sacrifice. But their Honour is greater than anything that man can give.
I went back to the trenches, and the Château with its park, its gates, its trees with autumn leaves, its well-dressed regiment with fixed and shining bayonets, its Generals in red and blue and gold, disappeared like a happy dream, and it was back to mud and duty.
But there is a deep down satisfaction in being in the front line that a man would not give up for much that the world holds dear.