“Just that and right he’d be, too,” Don replied. “But I think the determination to win out now is somewhat different from anything I have previously experienced; you’ll have to admit it has more pep to it than any game we ever got into.”
“For back of it is that primal love of life. We are willing to sacrifice everything rather than miss the glory of fighting on until we’re done for, but yet, Herb, it’s kind of sweet to think of living to do something worth while; to make an effort to gain happiness. You know I’m quoting a little from the principal’s last commencement address.”
“And yet I know as well as that I’m lying here on a hard rock that it’s a hard, cold fact that nobody could induce you to surrender,” argued Herb.
“Perfectly right, old man. If there were ten thousand Jerries, as the boys call them, going to rush us in ten minutes I would want to stay right here and give it to ’em until our cartridges were all gone.”
“Do you remember young Gaylord at Brighton, Don?”
“Remember him? Who doesn’t? You’re going to refer to the fact that he was generally considered a softy; that he was so blamed gentle that every one looked for him to burst into tears at any trying moment; aren’t you?”
“Yes, but you know what he did once; don’t you?”
“Just that,” said Herbert. “They tortured him horribly for an hour to make him tell where Grant, his roommate, kept his money hid--a lot of it--and did Gaylord tell? Not he! He refused and made mental notes of the men; they were arrested and sent up on it.”
“But what, exactly, has that to do with us, Herb?”
“It only shows that no matter what a fellow’s get-up is he may rise to any occasion. And I guess that’s us, Don. I know I used to hate the idea of shooting any living thing, and I do now, but in war--and they are human beings, too!”
“I know, but human beings may be thugs and criminals, Herb. I’d rather much less shoot a robin or a bluebird than some murderers and cut-throats who deserve nothing else.”
“But, Don, granting that the Kaiser and his war ministers are no better than murderers, all of his soldiers are not thugs and cut-throats. Many of these fellows are kindly, fair-minded family chaps, living blamelessly at home and minding their own business; hard-working, enjoying their simple pleasures until war calls them and they have no choice but to enter into the killing of their fellowmen of another nation. Because they are the dupes of an unjust military system they must be driven into duties that may make them victims of others who have no personal desire to harm them, except that being at war makes it necessary. I tell you, Don, there is nothing more harshly unjust than war!”