And still I marvelled, having scanned
Those eyes so full of Truth,
"Oh why do men misunderstand
This bright and blameless youth?"
O. S.
NEWS FROM THE BACK OF THE FRONT.
Northern France.
As you will see from our address, here we are among the War Correspondents. But there is a mistake somewhere; either there are not enough Germans to go round, or else they—Headquarters, you know—simply hate the idea of throwing the flower of the British Army into the full glare of the shrapnel. Anyhow, we haven't actually been engaged yet, though our Private Smithson has collected three bits of shrapnel and a German rifle; and we have all heard artillery fire (off). Which makes us think that these rumours of war aren't just a scare got up to help recruiting.
Some doubt exists among us as to our precise function out here. Here we are (as I may have mentioned) a magnificent battalion of young giants, complete with rifles—every man has at least one and Private Smithson has two—webbing equipment, cummerbunds, mufflers, cameras, sleeping caps (average, six per man) and even boots; and yet they can't decide exactly what to do with us. Mind you, we are absolute devils for a fight; we have already been reserve troops to five different divisions and thought nothing of it. We are not quite sure whether we get five medals for this or one medal with five bars. Not that we really care; such considerations do not affect us. As Edward—the mascot of the section—observed to me the other day, "I don't care two beans about medals; I want to go home."