There is much to be thankful for. The King’s Own Particular Fusiliers, as we shall call this regiment, had only three men hit yesterday. On every man’s cap is a metal badge crowded with battle honours, from the storming of Quebec to the relief of Ladysmith. Heroic its history; but no battle honours equal that of the regiment’s part in the second battle of Ypres; and no heroes of the regiment’s story, whom you picture in imagination with halos of glory in the wish that you might have met them in the flesh in their scarlet coats, are the equal of these survivors in plain khaki manning a ditch in A. D. 1915, whom any one may meet.
But do not tell them that they are heroes. They will deny it on the evidence of themselves as eye-witnesses of the action. To remark that the K. O. P. F. are brave is like remarking that water flows down hill. It is the business of the K. O. P. F. to be brave. Why talk about it?
One of the three men hit was killed. Well, everybody in the war rather expects to be killed. The other two “got tickets to England,” as they say. My lady will take the convalescents joy riding in her car and afterwards seat them in easy chairs, arranging the cushions with her own hands, and feed them slices of cold chicken in place of bully beef and strawberries and cream in place of ration marmalade. Oh, my! What hopes!
Mr. Atkins does not mind being a hero for the purposes of such treatment. Then, with never a twinkle in his eye, he will tell my lady that he does not want to return to the front; he has had enough of it, he has. My lady’s patriotism will be a trifle shocked, as Mr. Atkins knows it will be; and she will wonder if the “stick it” quality of the British soldier is weakening, as Mr. Atkins knows she will. For he has more kinks in his mental equipment than mere nobility ever guesses and he is having the time of his life in more respects than strawberries and cream. What hopes! Of course, he will return and hold on in the face of all that the Germans can give, without any pretence to bravery.
If one goes as a stranger into the trenches on a sightseeing tour and says, “How are you?” and, “Are you going to Berlin?” and, “Are you comfortable?” etc., Tommy Atkins will say, “Yes, sir,” and “Very well, sir,” etc., as becomes all polite regular soldier men; and you get to know him about as well as you know the members of a club if you are shown the library and dine at a corner table with a friend.