The coolness of our men under fire is, well illustrated in the following story.
"Out on the Aisne," says Trooper G. Hill of the 17th Lancers, "I watched a man of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, who lay in the trenches, quietly firing away at the advancing enemy as coolly as if he were in a shooting gallery at home. After each shot he turned for a pull at a cigarette lying by his side on a stone. When the enemy got so close that it was necessary to use bayonets, he simply laid his cigarette down and walked out of the trench to engage them with the steel. When the attack was beaten off, he walked back for his cigarette. 'Oh, it's smoked away, and it was my last!' was all that he said."
Probably the youngest sergeant in the world is Prudent Marius, a French boy of fourteen, scarcely four feet in height. On the outbreak of war he attached himself as cyclist scout to a certain regiment passing through Alsace-Lorraine. So useful did he prove to be that the regiment adopted him, and he acted as ammunition bearer, dispatch carrier, and generally as Jack-of-all-trades. By the time the Germans were drawing near to Paris he had been made a corporal, and had been wounded in the leg. Near Soissons, during the Battle of the Aisne, he was attached to the artillery, and while handing shells to a gunner was again wounded, this time in the face. Soon afterwards he was made a full-blown sergeant. A correspondent who saw him describes him as a curious little figure in his dark-blue coat and red trousers, with two gold stripes on his arm. In spite of his youth, he was quite indifferent to shell and rifle fire.
So many stories of treachery, bad faith, and cruelty are told of the Germans that it is good to know that all of them are not cast in the same mould. It is said that in one of the towns held by the Germans near the Aisne a certain French gentleman lay sick unto death. A German army doctor, who, of course, was not required to attend on civilians, heard of the case, and knowing that there were no French doctors in the town, offered his services to the sick man. This in itself was an act of great kindness, but the manner in which it was done raised it to the level of a deed of chivalry. The German doctor knew that the sick man hated the Germans, and that the visit of a German doctor would excite him and do him harm. So he took off his uniform, put on private clothes, and pretended to be an English doctor. I am sure that we all honour this German doctor for his kind heart and thoughtful good nature.