BILL. Ah well, it don't much matter. We're all most like to go afore this war's finished. JIM. If yer goes yer goes, and that's all abaht it. A bloke's got to go some day, and fer myself I'd as soon get done in doin' my dooty as I would die in my bed. I ain't struck on dyin' afore my time, and I don't know as I'm greatly struck on livin', but, whichever it is, you got ter make the best on it. BILL (_meditatively_). I woulden mind stoppin' a bullet fair an' square; but I woulden like one of them 'orrible lingerin' deaths. "Died o' wounds" arter six munfs' mortal hagony--that's wot gets at me. Git it over an' done wiv, I sez. FRED (_querulously_). Ow, chuck it, Bill. You gives me the creeps, you do. JIM. I knowed a bloke onest in civil life wot died a lingerin' death. Lived in the second-floor back in the same 'ouse as me an' my missus, 'e did. Suffered somefink' 'orrible, 'e did, an' lingered more nor five year. Yet I reckon 'e was one o' the best blokes as ever I come acrost. Went to 'eaven straight, 'e did, if ever any one did. Wasn't 'alf glad ter go, neither. "I done my bit of 'ell, Jim," 'e sez to me, an' looked that 'appy you'd a' thought as 'e was well agin. Shan't never forget 'is face, I shan't. An' I'd sooner be that bloke, for all 'is sufferin's, than I'd be old Fred 'ere, an' live to a 'undred. BILL (_philosophically_). You'm right, matey. This is a wale o' tears, as the 'ymn sez, and them as is out on it is best off, if so be as they done their dooty in that state o' life.... Where's the corfee, Jim? The water's on the bile. VII THE FEAR OF DEATH IN WAR I am not a psychologist, and I have not seen many people die in their beds; but I think it is established that very few people are afraid of a natural death when it comes to the test. Often they are so weak that they are incapable of emotion. Sometimes they are in such physical pain that death seems a welcome deliverer. But a violent death such as death in battle is obviously a different matter. It comes to a man when he is in the full possession of his health and vigour, and when every physical instinct is urging him to self-preservation. If a man feared death in such circumstances one could not be surprised, and yet in the present war hundreds of thousands of men have gone to meet practically certain destruction without giving a sign of terror. The fact is that at the moment of a charge men are in an absolutely abnormal condition.