With a pride of manhood beyond one's imagination, with a stern and
bitter contempt for all this devilish torture, loathing it but "sticking"
it, very much afraid yet refusing to surrender to the coward in their
souls (the coward in our souls which tempts all of us), sick of the
blood and the beastliness, yet keeping sane (for the most part) with
the health of normal minds and bodies in spite of all this wear and
tear upon the nerves, the rank-and-file of that British Expedition in
France and Flanders, under the leadership of young men who gave
their lives, with the largess of great prodigals, to the monstrous
appetite of Death, fought with something like superhuman qualities.
6
Although I spent most of my time on the Belgian and French side of
the war, I had many glimpses of the British troops who were enduring
these things, and many conversations with officers and men who had
come, but a few hours ago, from the line of fire. I went through British
hospitals and British ambulance trains where thousands of them lay
with new wounds, and I dined with them when after a few weeks of
convalescence they returned to the front to undergo the same ordeal.
Always I felt myself touched with a kind of wonderment at these men.
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