But there were no such reflections to sustain the soldier in Russia. The Armistice came, and he remembers the day as one of sanguinary battle, when his dwindling numbers suffered further grievous losses, and he was sniped at, stormed with shrapnel and shaken by high explosive shells. He heard of the cessation of blood-letting in France and Belgium, but for many desolate, despairing months, he stood to his guns, witnessing his comrades killed and mutilated, the wounded lying in crude, dirty huts, makeshifts of dressing stations, then in sledges, dragged many excruciating miles over the snow to the rear, where often they got little better attention than at the front lines. He knew his physical strength was failing under the unrelieved monotony of the Arctic exploration ration; he saw others with scabies and disgusting diseases of malnutrition, and wondered how long before he too would be in the same way. He felt his sanity reeling in the short-lived, murky, winter days, the ever encircling menace of impending disaster and annihilation. He asked his officers why he fought, and why he was facing an enemy vastly superior to him in strength and equipment and armament, and why he was separated from his family and home and the ways of life, and when the end would come. But his officers were silent under this inquisition. They asked the same questions themselves, and got no reply. The colonel who commanded this fated regiment told his soldiers that he could give no reason for them to oppose the enemy other than that their lives and those of the whole expedition depended upon successful resistance. So soldierlike, he "carried on," while the dreary skies above him menaced death, and death stalked the encompassing forests of the scattered front lines, and the taint of death was in the air he breathed. In the end, and when nearly all hope had fled, he returned homeward, stricken in health and dazed in spirit, where people moved as before, and were agitated by the same concerns, as if nothing had occurred to upset the whole scheme of things and uproot forever the old standards of values and ambition and morality. They noticed a queer look in his eyes and that he was customarily silent, often introspective. They manifested a casual interest in his great adventure. They never could understand. Both expeditions were conceived by the British High Command and both were conducted by the execution of British military orders. Perhaps therein is the underlying philosophy of North Russia and Gallipoli; this attachment of the British mind to an astricted faith in England and her imperial destiny to rule the peoples of the world, contemptuous of obstacles and difficulties and perils in unknown, alien lands that appear very real to other than British mental processes.