For five years they were not men, but screws in a vast evil machine. They had, indeed, experience of death; none of life. They had, practically, no responsibility towards, or for, themselves; no sense of duty before them except obedience; no aim beyond a standardized efficiency. They lost every influence of home, neighbourliness, citizenship, and above all the refinement and sanctity of love. To live for the moment became their Ideal; in a vision of noble patriotism and sublime self-sacrifice. It was not for them to plan, look forward, build up life and character for themselves. This unnatural and irresponsible existence, moreover, was to be spent among scenes of appalling savagery and the worst primitive passions. "The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps; And trunks, face downward, in the sucking mud, Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled; And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair, Bulged, clotted heads slept in the plastering slime." Only devils can serve the Devil of War; and _the supreme sacrifice our sons made for us was the sacrifice of their humanity_. To "do their bit," they put away themselves. But this abnormal, unreal existence, these lives in the Flame of Hate, hardened and coarsened by the day's work, positively _had_ to discover some outlet; quick, sure ways to forget. Quite unused to the normal "decencies," without experience in "ordering" themselves, the sex-instinct became explosive, a sense-riot unrestrained. Remember, that to men (and women, for that matter), hard working at high pressure, leading a strained and feverish life, the sex-thirst springs out. There is no drug for worn-out bodies and souls so easy and so sweet-savoured, so prompt in its effects, for the moment so complete. In those days few stopped to count the cost, face the consequences, or note the weakening of the will. With death "round the corner," why stop to think? Life was all snatching; action meant a shrewd blow, careless of what, in ourselves or in another, we killed by the way. And for girls and young women there was one Rule of Life—"give the men a good time." I know the inspiring motive, however little conscious in some, was a generous self-forgetting. To give is always ennobling, and God forbid one should ever, by thought or word, belittle the selfless heroism born in woman.