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hold of a couple of bombs, makes for the worst noise, and carries on
as a soldier should.
After the show the O.C. nothing in particular tells the Colonel all his
theories on counter-attack, and goes sick in the morning for the
remaining period of his tour; the other twain stand easy, and the
Deputy Assistant Adjutant makes an application for transfer to the
Battalion. Incidentally he is recommended for the military cross.
When the four previously mentioned return to England they all of
them apply for better soft jobs, on the strength of recent experiences
at the front. The one man who threw up his soft job to become junior
subaltern in a fighting regiment is killed in the next “show” before his
recommendation for a decoration has been finally approved.
Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum.
 “GROUSE”
We aren’t happy; our clothes don’t fit, and we ain’t got no friends!
Rations are not up yet—confound the Transport Officer—it’s raining
like the dickens, as dark as pitch, and we’ve only got one bit of
candle. Some one has pinched a jar of rum, that idiot batman of
mine can’t find a brazier, and young John has lost his raincoat. In
fact it’s a rotten war.
We had lobster for lunch; it has never let us forget we had it! The
Johnny we “took over” from said there were 7698 million bombs in
the Battalion grenade store, and there are only 6051. The Adjutant
has just sent a “please explain,” which shows what you get for
believing a fellow.
The little round fat chap has left his gumboots (thigh) “Somewhere in
France,” and fell into the trench tramway trying to wear an odd six on
the right foot, and an odd nine on the left. George has busted the D
string of the mandoline, and A. P. has lost the only pack of cards we
had to play poker with.
It’s a simply rotten war!
John has a working-party out of sixty “other ranks” and says they are
spread in two’s and three’s over a divisional frontage. He has made
two trips to locate them, and meditates a third. His language is
positively hair-raising. If he falls into any more shell-holes no one will
let him in the dug-out.
Those confounded brigade machine gunners are firing every other
second just in front of the dug-out. Heaven knows what they are
firing at, or where, but how a man could be expected to sleep
through the noise only a siege artillery man could tell you.
George went out on a “reconnaissance” recently. George is great on
doing reconnaissances and drawing maps. This time the
reconnaissance did him, and the only map he’s yet produced is mud
tracings on his person. Incidentally he says that all the
communication trenches are impassable, and that no one but a cat
could go over the top and keep on his feet for more than thirty
seconds. (N.B.—George fell into the main support line and had to be
pulled out by some of John’s working-party.) George says that if the
Germans come over it’s all up. Cheerful sort of beggar, George.
My new smoke-helmet—the one you wear round your neck all the
time, even in your dreams—is lost again. This is the third time in the
course of six hours. The gas N.C.O. has calculated that with the
wind at its present velocity we should be gassed in one and three-
quarter seconds, not counting the recurring decimal.
John has just told a story about a bayonet. It would be funny at any
other time. Now, it simply sticks!
The cook has just come in to say our rations have been left behind
by mistake. Troubles never come singly. May heaven protect the
man who is responsible if we get him! John has told another story,
about an Engineer. It can’t be true, for he says this chap was out in
No Man’s Land digging a trench. No one ever knew a Canadian
Engineer do anything but tell the infantry how to work. It’s a rotten
story, anyhow.
Just look at this dug-out; a bottle of rum on the table—empty. The
odd steel helmet, some dirty old newspapers, and a cup or two
(empty!), and a pile of strafes from the Adjutant six inches thick. My
bed has a hole in it as big as a “Johnson ’ole,” and there are rats.
Also the place is inhabited by what the men call “crumbs.” Poetic
version of a painful fact.
John says this is the d—est outfit he has ever been in. John is right.
My gumboots were worn by the Lance-Corporal in No. 2 platoon,
and they are wet, beastly wet. Also my batman has forgotten to put
any extra socks in my kit-bag. Also he’s lost my German rifle—the
third I’ve bought for twenty francs and lost.
This is a deuce of a war!
The mail has just arrived. George got five, the little round fat fellow
nine, A. P. two, and John and me shake hands with a duck’s-egg.
Still the second mentioned has his troubles. One of his many
inamoratas has written to him in French. He knows French just about
as well as he knows how to sing! Nuff said!
John has “parti’d” to his triple-starred working-party. The men have
not got any letters either. You should hear them! The most expert
“curser” of the Billingsgate fishmarket would turn heliotrope with
envy. George is feeling badly too. He lent his flash-light to dish out
rations with. That is to say, to illuminate what the best writers of
nondescript fiction call the “Cimmerian gloom!”
A. P. has had letters from his wife. Lucky dog! She takes up four
pages telling him how she adores him.
This is a beastly rotten war.
Fritz is a rotter too. My dug-out is two hundred yards north by nor’-
east. Every time I have to make the trip he never fails to keep the
Cimmerian gloom strictly “Cim.” And the bath-mats are broken in two
places, and I’ve found both of them every time.
Another strafe from the Adjutant. May jackals defile his grave, but
he’ll never have one in France, anyhow. “Please render an account
to Orderly Room of the number of men in your unit who are qualified
plumbers.”
We haven’t any.
If we had we should have mended the hole in the roof, which leaks
on John’s bed. It has only just begun to leak. It will be fun to hear
what John says when he comes back. Only he may be speechless.
The little round fat fellow is still reading letters, and A. P. is hunting in
his nether garments. “Kinder scratterin’ aroun’!” So far the bag
numbers five killed and two badly winged, but still on the run.
Somebody has turned out the guard. Yells of fire. After due
inspection proves to be the C.O.’s tunic. It was a new one! May his
batman preserve himself in one piece.
More yells of “Guard turn out!” Support my tottering footsteps! Our—
that is to say my dug-out is on fire.... Confusion.... Calm.... I have no
dug-out, no anything.... This is, pardonnez-moi, a Hell of a war!
 PANSIES
There are some pansies on my table, arranged in a broken glass
one of the men has picked up among the rubble and débris of this
shattered town. Dark mauve and yellow pansies, pretty, innocent
looking little things. “Pansies—that’s for thoughts.”
Transport is rattling up and down the street—guns, limbers, G.S.
wagons, water-carts, God knows what, and there are men marching
along, mud-caked, weary, straggling, clinging fast to some German
souvenir as they come one way; jaunty, swinging, clean, with bands
a-blowing as they go the other. It is a dull grey day. There is
“something doing” up the line. I can hear the artillery, that ceaseless
artillery, pounding and hammering, and watch the scout aeroplanes,
dim grey hawks in the distance, from the windows of the room above
—the broken-down room with the plasterless ceiling, and the clothes
scattered all over the floor.
“Pansies—that’s for thoughts.”
The regiment is up yonder—the finest regiment God ever made.
They are wallowing in the wet, sticky mud of the trenches they have
dug themselves into, what is left of them. They are watching and
waiting, always watching and waiting for the enemy to attack.
And they are being bombarded steadily, pitilessly, without cessation.
Some will be leaning against the parapet, sleeping the sleep of
exhaustion, some will be watching, some smoking, if they have got
any smokes left. I know them. Until the spirit leaves their bodies they
will grin and fight, fight and grin, but always “Carry On.”
Last night they went up to relieve the —th, after they had just come
out of the line, and were themselves due to be relieved. Overdue, in
fact, but the General knew that he could rely on them, knew that
they would never give way, while there was a man left to fire a rifle.
So he used them—as they have always been used, and as they
always will be—to hold the line in adversity, to take the line when no
one else could take it.
We have been almost wiped out five times, but the old spirit still
lives, the Spirit of our mighty dead. There are always enough “old
men” left, even though they number but a score, with whom to
leaven the lump of raw, green rookies that come to us, and to turn
them into soldiers worthy of the Regiment.
Dark mauve pansies.
I knew all the old soldiers of the Brigade, I have fought with them,
shaken hands with them afterwards—those who survived—mourned
with them our pals who were gone—buried many a one of them.
This time I am out of it. Alone with the pansies ... and my thoughts.
Thomson was killed last night; Greaves, Nicholson, Townley,
between then and now. Nearly all the rest are wounded. Those who
come back will talk of this fight, they will speak of hours and events
of which I shall know nothing. For the first time I shall be on the outer
fringe, mute ... with only ears to hear, and no heart to speak.
Perhaps they will come out to-morrow night. Or, early, very early the
following morning. They will be tired—so tired they are past feeling it
—unshaven, unwashed, and covered with mud from their steel
helmets down to the soles of their boots. But they will be fairly
cheerful. They will try to sing on the long, long march back here, as I
have heard them so many times before. When they reach the edge
of the town they will try to square their weary shoulders, and to keep
step—and they will do it, too, heaven only knows how, but they will
do it. Their leader will feel very proud of them, which is only right and
proper. He will call them “boys,” encourage the weak, inwardly
admire and bless the strong. And he will be proud of the mud and
dirt, proud of his six days’ growth of beard. Satisfied; because he has
just done one more little bit, and the Good Lord has pulled him
through it.
When they get to their billets they will cheer; discordantly, but cheer
none the less. They will crowd into the place, and drop their kits and
themselves on top of them, to sleep the sleep of the just—the well-
earned sleep of utter fatigue.
In the morning they will feel better, and they will glance at you with
an almost affectionate look in their eyes, for they know—as the men
always know—whether you have proved yourself, whether you have
made good—or failed.
“Pansies ... that’s for thoughts....”
And I am out of it—out of it ALL ... preparing “To re-organise what is
left of the regiment.”
For God’s sake, Holman, take away those flowers!
 GOING BACK
A large crowd packed the wide platform, hemmed in on one side by
a barrier, on the other by a line of soldiers two paces apart. The
boat-train was leaving in five minutes. That a feeling of tension
permeated the crowd was evident, from the forced smiles and
laughter, and the painful endeavours of the departing ones to look
preternaturally cheerful. In each little group there were sudden
silences.
Almost at the last moment a tall, lean officer pressed through the
crowd, made for a smoking-carriage, and got in. He surveyed the
scene with a rather compassionate interest, while occasionally a
wistful look passed over his face as he watched for a moment an
officer talking with a very pretty girl, almost a child, who now and
then mopped her eyes defiantly with a diminutive handkerchief.
“All aboard.”
The pretty girl lifted up her face, and the lonely one averted his eyes,
pulled a newspaper hastily from his overcoat pocket, and proceeded
to read it upside down!
As the train pulled out of the station a cheer went up and
handkerchiefs fluttered. The sole other occupant of the carriage, a
young—very young—subaltern who had just said good-bye to his
mother, muttered to himself and blinked hard out of the window. The
Lonely One shrugged himself more deeply into his seat, and
abstractedly reversed the newspaper. A paragraph caught his eye:
“Artillery activity developed yesterday in the sector south of Leuville
St. Vaast. An enemy attempt to raid our trenches at this point was
foiled.” He smiled a trifle, and putting down the paper fell to thinking.
Unable to contain himself any longer, the boy in the corner spoke.
“Rotten job, this going back show,” he said. The other assented
gravely, and they fell to talking, spasmodically, of the Front. Pure,
undiluted shop, but very comforting.
Finally the train arrived at the port of embarkation. A crowd of
officers of all ranks surged along the platform, glanced at the
telegram board, and passed on towards the boat. The Lonely One
stopped, however, for his name in white chalk stared at him. He got
the telegram eventually and opened it. It contained only two words
and no signature: “Good luck.” Flushing a trifle he walked down to
the waiting mail-boat, and getting his disembarkation card passed up
the gangway.
An air of impenetrable gloom hung over the dirty decks. Here and
there a few men chatted together, but for the most part the
passengers kept to themselves. The lonely man found the young
lieutenant waiting for him, and together they mounted to the upper
deck, and secured two chairs aft, hanging their life-belts on to them.
A little later the boat cast off, and they watched the land fade from
sight as many others were watching with them. “Ave atque Vale.”
“I wonder ...” said the youngster, and then bit his lips.
“Come below and have some grub,” the other said cheerily. They
ate, paid for it through the nose, and felt better. Half an hour later
they were in Boulogne.
As they waited outside the M.L.O.’s office for their turn, the younger
asked:
“I say, what Army are you?”
“First.”
“So’m I,” joyfully, “p’raps we’ll go up together.”
“I hope so, but we shall have to stop here the night, I expect.”
Even as he said so a notice was hung outside the little wooden
office: “Officers of the First Army returning from leave will report to
the R.T.O., Gare Centrale, at 10.00 a.m. to-morrow, Saturday, 17th
instant.”
“That settles it,” said the elder man, “come along, and we’ll go to the
Officers’ Club and bag a couple of beds.”
“Nineteen hours,” wailed the other, “in this beastly place! What on
earth shall we find to do?”
“Don’t worry about that—there is usually some one to whom one can
write.” It was both a hint and a question.
“Yes—ra—ther!”
They had tea, and afterwards the boy wrote a long letter, in which he
said a great deal more to the mother who received it than was
actually written on the paper. The Lonely One sat for some time in
front of the fire, and finally scribbled a card. It was addressed to
some place in the wilds of Scotland, and it bore the one word
“Thanks.”
After dinner they sat and smoked awhile. The Lonely One knew
much of the life-history of the other by now. It had burst from the boy,
and the Lonely One had listened sympathetically and with little
comment, and had liked to hear it. It is good to hear a boy talk about
his mother.
“What shall we do now?”
“We might go to the cinema show; it used to be fairly good.”
“Right-oh! I say”—a little diffidently—“last time I was on leave, the
first time too, I came back with some fellows who were pretty—well
—pretty hot stuff. They wanted me to go to a—to a place up in the
town, and I didn’t go. I think they thought I was an awful blighter,
don’t-you-know, but——”
“What that kind of chap thinks doesn’t matter in the least, old man,”
interposed the other. “You were at Cambridge, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you may have heard the old tag? Besides, I don’t think—some
one—somebody ...” he hesitated and stopped. The youngster
flushed.
“Yes, I know,” he said softly.
They boarded the train together, and shared the discomforts of the
long tedious journey. Every hour, or less, the train stopped, for many
minutes, and then with a creak and a groan wandered on again like
an ancient snail. Rain beat on the window-panes, and the
compartment was as drafty as a sieve.
It was not until the small hours that they reached their destination, a
cold, bleak, storm-swept platform.
“This is where we say good-bye,” the youngster began regretfully,
“thanks awf’ly for——”
“Rot,” broke in the other brusquely, taking the proffered hand in his
big brown one. “Best of luck, old man, and don’t forget to drop me a
card.”
“A nice boy, a very nice boy,” he mused, as he climbed into the
military bus, and was rattled off, back to the mud and slush and
dreariness of it all.
“Have a good time?” asked the Transport Officer the next morning,
as the Lonely One struggled into his fighting kit, preparatory to
rejoining the battalion in the trenches.
“Yes, thanks. By the way, any mail for me?”
“One letter. Here you are.”
He took it, looked an instant at the handwriting, and thrust it inside
his tunic. The postmark was the same as that of the wire he had
received at the port of embarkation.
 THREE RED ROSES
In the distance rose the spires of Ypres, and the water-tower,
useless now for the purpose for which it was built, but still erect on
its foundations. The silvery mist of early April hung very lightly over
the flat surrounding land, hiding one corner of Vlamertinghe from
sight, where the spire of the church still raised its head, as yet
unvanquished. A red sun was rising in the East, and beyond Ypres a
battle still raged, though nothing to the battle of a few short days
before. Hidden batteries spoke now and then, and the roads were a
cloud of dust, as men, transport, guns, and many ambulances
passed along them. Overhead aeroplanes droned, and now and
again shells whistled almost lazily overhead, to fall with a thunderous
“crrumph” in Brielen and Vlamertinghe.
By the canal there was a dressing-station. The little white flag with its
red cross hung listless in the still air. Motor ambulances drove up at
speed and departed with their burdens. Inside the dressing-station
men worked ceaselessly, as they had been working for days.
Sometimes shells fell near by. No one heeded them.
Beyond the dressing-station, down the road, the banks of which
were filled with little niches hollowed out with entrenching tools,
hurried a figure. He was but one of many, but there was that about
him which commanded the attention of all who saw him. His spurs
and boots were dirty, his uniform covered with stains and dust, his
face unshaven. He walked like a man in a dream, yet as of set
purpose. Pale and haggard, he strode along, mechanically
acknowledging salutes.
Arrived at the dressing-station, without pausing he entered, and went
up to one of the doctors who was bandaging the remnants of an arm.
“Have they come yet?” he asked.
The other looked at him gravely with a certain respect and pity, and
with the eye also of a medical man.
“Not yet, Colonel,” he answered. “You had better sit down and rest,
you are all in.”
The Colonel passed a weary hand over his forehead.
“No,” he said. “No, Campbell; I shall go back and look for the party.
They may have lost their way, and—they were three of my best
officers, three of my boys.... I—I——”
“Here, sir! Take this.”
It was more of a command than a request. The Colonel drained what
was given him, and went out without a word.
Back he trudged, along the shell-pitted road, even now swept by
occasional salvos of shrapnel. He took no notice of anything, but
continued feverishly on his way, his eyes ever searching the
distance. At last he gave vent to an exclamation. Down the road was
coming a stretcher party. They had but one stretcher, and on it lay
three blanketed bundles.
The Colonel met them, and with bowed head accompanied them
back to the dressing-station.
“You found them—all?” It was his only question.
“Yes, sir, all that was left.”
The stretcher was taken to a little empty dug-out, and with his own
hands the C.O. laid the Union Jack over it.
“When will the—the graves be ready?” he asked the doctor.
“By five o’clock, sir.”
“I will be back at 4.30.”
“You must take some rest, Colonel, or you’ll break down.”
“Thank you, Campbell, I can look after myself!”
“Very good, sir.”
As he went away Captain Campbell looked after him rather
anxiously.
“Never would have thought he could be so upset,” he mused. “He’ll
be in hospital, if——”
Straight back to Brielen the Colonel walked, and there he met his
orderly with the horses. He mounted without a word, and rode on,
through Vlamertinghe, until he reached Popheringe. There he
dismounted.
“I shall be some time,” he said to the orderly.
He went through the square, up the noisy street leading to the
Vehrenstraat, and along it, until he reached a little shop, in which
were still a few flowers. He entered, and a frightened-looking woman
came to serve him.
“I want three red roses,” he said.
It took the saleswoman several minutes to understand, but finally
she showed him what she had. The roses were not in their first
bloom, but they were large and red. The Colonel had them done up,
and left carrying them carefully. The rest of his time he spent in
repairing as well as might be the ravages of battle on his clothes and
person. At 4.20 he was again at the dressing-station.
A quiet-voiced padre awaited him there, a tall, ascetic-looking man,
with the eyes of a seer.
They carried the bundles on the stretcher to the graves, three among
many, just behind the dressing-station.
“Almighty God, as it has pleased Thee to take the souls of these, our
dear brothers ...” the sonorous voice read on, while the C.O. stood,
bare-headed, at the head of the graves, holding in his hand the three
red roses. The short burial service came to an end.
The Colonel walked to the foot of each grave in turn, and gently
threw on each poor shattered remnant a red rose. Straightening
himself, he stood long at the salute, and then, with a stern, set face,
he strode away, to where the Padre awaited him, not caring that his
eyes were wet. The Padre said nothing, but took his hand and
gripped it.
“Padre,” said the Colonel, “those three were more to me than any
other of my officers; I thought of them as my children.”
 ADJUTANTS
If Fate cherishes an especial grievance against you, you will be
made an Adjutant.
One of those bright beautiful mornings, when all the world is young
and, generally speaking, festive, the sword of Damocles will descend
upon you, and you will be called to the Presence, and told you are to
be Adjutant. You will, perhaps, be rather inclined to think yourself a
deuce of a fellow on that account. You will acquire a pair of spurs,
and expect to be treated with respect. You will, in fact, feel that you
are a person of some importance, quite the latest model in good little
soldiers. You may—and this is the most cruel irony of all—be
complimented on your appointment by your brother officers.
Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, saith the preacher!
As soon as you become the “voice of the C.O.,” you lose every friend
you ever possessed. You are just about as popular as the proverbial
skunk at a garden-party. It takes only two days to find this out.
The evening of the second day you decide to have a drink, Orderly
Room or no Orderly Room. You make this rash decision, and you tell
the Orderly-Room Sergeant—only heaven knows when he sleeps—
that you are going out.
“I will be back in half an hour,” you say.
Then you go forth to seek for George—George, your pal, your
intimate, your bosom friend. You find George in your old Coy. head-
quarters, and a pang of self-pity sweeps over you as you cross the
threshold and see the other fellows there: George, Henry, John, and
the rest.
“Come and have a——” you begin cheerily. Suddenly, in the frosty
silence you hear a cool, passionless voice remark,
“Good evening, sir!”
It is George, the man you loved and trusted, whom you looked on as
a friend and brother.
“George, come and have a——” again the words stick in your throat.
George answers, in tones from which all amity, peace, and goodwill
towards men have vanished:
“Thanks very much, sir”—oh baleful little word—“but I’ve just started
a game of poker.”
Dimly light dawns in your reeling brain; you realise the full extent of
your disabilities, and you know that all is over. You are the Adjutant—
the voice of the C.O.!
Sadly, with the last glimmer of Adjutant pride and pomp cast from out
your soul, you return to Orderly Room, drinkless, friendless, and
alone.
“The Staff Captain has been ringing you up, sir. He wants to know if
the summary of evidence ...” and so on. In frenzied desperation you
seize the telephone. Incidentally you call the Staff Captain away from
his dinner. What he says, no self-respecting man—not even an
Adjutant—could reveal without laying bare the most lacerated
portions of his innermost feelings.
You go to bed, a sadder and a wiser man, wondering if you could go
back to the Company, even as the most junior sub., were you to
make an impassioned appeal to the C.O.
About 1 a.m. some one comes in and awakens you.
“Message from Brigade, sir.”
With an uncontrite heart you read it: “Forward to this office
immediately a complete nominal roll of all men of your unit who have
served continuously for nine months without leave.” That takes two
hours, and necessitates the awakening of all unit commanders, as
the last Adjutant kept no record. In psychic waves you feel curses
raining on you through the stilly night. Having made an application—
in writing—to the C.O., to be returned to duty, you go to bed.
At 3.30 a.m. you are awakened again. “Movement order from
Brigade, sir!”
This time you say nothing. All power of speech is lost. The entire
regiment curses you, while by the light of a guttering candle you
write a movement order, “operation order number”—what the deuce
is the number anyhow. The Colonel is—shall we say—indisposed as
to temper, and the companies get half an hour to fall in, ready to
march off. One Company loses the way, and does not arrive at the
starting-point.
“Did you specify the starting-point quite clearly, Mr. Jones?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Where did you say it was?”
“One hundred yards south of the ‘n’ in candin, sir.”
“There are two ‘n’s’ in candin, Mr. Jones; two ‘n’s’! How can you
expect a company commander to know which ‘n’? Gross
carelessness. Gross carelessness. Go and find the Company,
please.”
“Yessir.”
You find the Company only just out of billets, after scouring the
miserable country around the wrong ‘n’ for fifteen minutes, and
falling off your horse into one of those infernal ditches.
The battalion moves off half an hour later, and the C.O. has lots to
say about it. He also remarks that his late Adjutant was “a good
horseman”—a bitter reflection!
There is absolutely no hope for an Adjutant. If he is a good man at
the “job” everybody hates him. If he is feeble the C.O. hates him.
The Brigade staff hate him on principle. If he kow-tows to them they
trample on him with both feet, if he does not they set snares for him,
and keep him up all night. He is expected to know everything: K. R.
and O. backwards and forwards, divisional drill, and the training of a
section. Routine for the cure of housemaid’s knee in mules, and the
whole compendium of Military Law. He is never off duty, and even his
soul is not his own. He is, in fact, The Adjutant.
Sometimes people try to be nice to him. They mean well. They will
come into the Orderly Room and say: “Oh, Mr. Jones, can you tell
me where the 119th Reserve Battery of the 83rd Reserve Stokes
Gun Coy. is situated?” Of course, Adjutants know everything.
And when you admit ignorance they look at you with pained surprise,
and go to Brigade.
“I asked the Adjutant of the —th Battalion, but he did not seem to
know.”
Adjutants die young.
 HOME
There is one subject no man mentions at the Front unless it be very
casually, en passant. Even then it brings with it a sudden silence.
There is so much, so very much in that little word “Home.”
If a man were to get up at a sing-song and sing “Home, Sweet
Home,” his life would be imperilled. His audience would rise and
annihilate him, because they could not give vent to their feelings in
any other way. There are some things that strike directly at the heart,
and this is one of them.
You see the new officer, the men of the new draft, abstracted, with a
rather wistful look on their faces, as they gaze into the brazier, or sit
silently in billets when their work is done. You have felt like that, and
you know what is the matter. The symptoms are not to be
encouraged in the individual nor the mass. They lead to strong drink
and dissipation, for no man can preserve his inward calm for long, if
he dwells much on his dearest recollections of Home. There is but
one remedy: work, and lots of it, action, movement, anything to
distract.
Many a man has committed some small “crime” that brought him to
Orderly Room because he allowed his mind to wander ... Home—
and realised too fully the percentage of his chances of ever seeing
that home again. The Front is not a garden of Allah, or a bed of
roses, or even a tenth-rate music-hall as some people would have us
believe. It has to be made bearable by the spirit of those who endure
it.
There is enough that is grim and awe-inspiring—aye! and heart-
rending, without seeking it. That is why we do not like certain kinds
of music at the Front, why the one-time student of “intense” music
develops an uncontrollable predilection for wild and woolly rag-time
strains, and never winces at their execution however faulty. That is