"Hate 'em?" said the sergeant; "well, I don't know. Mind you, they are fine soldiers, and brave men too, or at least they seem brave; but it's discipline does it. They are just like machinery. Once when I was right in the middle of it, they attacked in close formation, and we turned our machine-guns on 'em. Ever seen a mowing machine in a wheat field? ever seen the wheat fall before the knives? Well, that's how they fell. Hundreds upon hundreds; but still they came on. Just as fast as one lot was killed, the others, knowing that they were going to certain death, came on, thinking they would wear us down by sheer numbers."
"Did they?" asked Tom.
"No, that time they didn't," replied the sergeant, "but another scrap I was in they did. That is their plan, you know; it is terribly costly, but when it succeeds it works havoc."
"Have you been wounded at all?" asked Tom.
"Yes, I have stopped two bullets, one in the foot and another in the shoulder, but I quickly got over it. I have been wonderfully lucky. You will get used to it after a bit; you seem a plucky chap; you don't look like the sort that runs away. Although, mind you, I have seen plucky chaps hook it."
"No, I'm not plucky," said Tom; "but I don't think I would run away."
"Wait till the shrapnel is falling around you; wait till great pieces of jagged shell mow men down on your right and on your left. Still we have stuck so far, and we must stick to the end. Still, from a military standpoint," and here the sergeant spoke judicially, "our holding Wipers is a bad policy. You see, it's a salient and the Germans guns are all around us; but if we made a straight line we should give them Wipers, and that would have a bad effect. Just look in here," and he pointed to a house, the front of which was completely blown away, but the rest of which remained comparatively intact.
"There's the room just as those poor blighters of Belgians left it," continued the sergeant. "See the baby's shoes, and the kiddy's dress? There are one or two pictures on the wall, not of much value, or those blooming souvenir-hunters would have got 'em."
"Do you think we shall lick 'em?" asked Tom.
"Lick 'em! Of course we shall," said the sergeant, who had served nearly twenty years in the Army. "Mind you, it will be no easy job. Up to now they have had the upper hand of us, both in men and munitions; but we are gaining on 'em now. What I can't stand is those blooming swipes, those shirkers who sit at home and who call themselves men. I tell you I'm for conscription out and out. This is no job to be played with; if we don't put forth our strength we can't beat 'em. But just think of those swine, who read the papers and talk about beating the Germans, who strut about with their patent-leather boots and fine clothes, and try to make out that they are gentlemen, but who won't face the music; that's what sickens me. Who are we fighting for, I should like to know? We are fighting for them, and for our women, and for the old country. They think they can stop at home and criticise, and then when we have done the work, share the benefits. Great God!"—and here the sergeant indulged in some unprintable language—"I would like to get hold of them."