‘What made you go forward?’ I asked him.
‘Discipline, and the knowledge that if I funked, my name would stick in the mud for ever. I am not a hero, and I believe thousands feel like that. We are really a race of pacifists; but, for all that, I hold that a pacifist nation in arms is much more deadly than a nation nurtured on the themes of Bernhardi. None of us is in this business because he likes it. Personally, I loathe the whole scheme. It is ghastly. Still we, apparently, can only end it by fighting, and that is why I and many others are in.’
‘What frightened you most, Billy?’
‘Oh, the noise—the terrible noise. If it weren’t for the high explosives I believe war wouldn’t be half bad. But it is the noise which has a demoralising effect on the educated brain. It stuns, unnerves, and creates a thousand fears. Mind you, I don’t think it has the same effect on a navvy, a miner, or any sort of manual labourer. These men have no nerves, and for that reason I think they are the best private soldiers. The duller the brain, the less the suffering. But modern war is a terrible thing for the highly sensitive and highly skilled.’
‘Did you reach your objective all right?’ asked Ginger.
‘Yes. I saw the C.O. ahead, waving us on, and I went. The man seemed so brave that one really couldn’t let him down, so we just followed. But I was still nervous. Then I saw the C.O. fall. He was shot through the stomach. I went mad. I wanted to kill some one. When I got to the first line of the Huns I saw a big fellow skulking away. I shot him—dead. After that I wanted more. God forgive me for the feeling, but I’m sure it was the primitive lust to kill. It’s in us all. Education seemed but a veneer. When it was all over I went into a corner and prayed. Ugh! it’s a horrible business,’ concluded Billy.
‘Yes, we all have much the same experience,’ added Nobby Clarke. ‘Personally, it wasn’t the thought of death that worried me, but the secret fear of getting a stomach-wound, and being left out in No Man’s Land. And I believe almost every officer and man has the same secret dread. The reason, I think, is that an abdominal wound is usually fatal or crippling, and a man does not like to picture a bayonet or a lump of shrapnel in his tummy. If a scientist could devise a light bullet-proof abdominal belt, I believe that men would go forward much quicker and more confidently.’
‘Do you think the Hun has the same fear?’ I asked.
‘I think the Hun is even more afraid of a stomach-wound than we are. Man to man, he is not our equal in bayonet-fighting. It may be lack of training, but I imagine it really is due to the fact that he is flabby and no sportsman. For example, in the one bayonet-fight which I was in, not one of the Huns stood up to us. They flung their rifles away and squealed like pigs. Cold steel to a German is worse than gas or shells. The Hun is terror-stricken when he sees the knife of the Gurkha.’
‘Who do you think are really best with the bayonet, Nobby?’ asked Billy.