Americans will die as Britons have died for this noble cause;
Americans will bleed as Britons have bled; American women will mourn
as British women have mourned these last terrible years; yet, in
these deaths, in this noble blood, in these tears of agony and
bereavement, surely the souls of these two great nations will draw
near, each to each, and understand at last.
Here in a word is the fulfilment of the dream; that, by the united
effort, by the blood, by the suffering, by the heartbreak endured of
these two great English-speaking races, wars shall be made to cease
in all the world; that peace and happiness, truth and justice shall
be established among us for all generations, and that the united
powers of the Anglo-Saxon races shall be a bulwark behind which
Mankind may henceforth rest secure.
Now, in the name of Humanity, I appeal to American and to Briton to
work for, strive, think and pray for this great and glorious
consummation.
II
CARTRIDGES
At an uncomfortable hour I arrived at a certain bleak railway
platform and in due season, stepping into a train, was whirled away
northwards. And as I journeyed, hearkening to the talk of my
companions, men much travelled and of many nationalities, my mind was
agog for the marvels and wonders I was to see in the workshops of
Great Britain. Marvels and wonders I was prepared for, and yet for
once how far short of fact were all my fancies!
Britain has done great things in the past; she will, I pray, do even
greater in the future; but surely never have mortal eyes looked on an
effort so stupendous and determined as she is sustaining, and will
sustain, until this most bloody of wars is ended.
The deathless glory of our troops, their blood and agony and scorn of
death have been made pegs on which to hang much indifferent writing
and more bad verse--there have been letters also, sheaves of them, in
many of which effusions one may discover a wondering surprise that
our men can actually and really fight, that Britain is still the
Britain of Drake and Frobisher and Grenville, of Nelson and Blake and
Cochrane, and that the same deathless spirit of heroic determination
animates her still.
To-night, as I pen these lines, our armies are locked in desperate
battle, our guns are thundering on many fronts, but like an echo to
their roar, from mile upon mile of workshops and factories and
shipyards is rising the answering roar of machinery, the thunderous
crash of titanic hammers, the hellish rattle of riveters, the
whining, droning, shrieking of a myriad wheels where another vast
army is engaged night and day, as indomitable, as fierce of purpose
as the army beyond the narrow seas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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