The English soldier, and when I say English I mean to include Welsh, Scotch and Irish, reserves to himself the right to "grouse." He grouses at everything great or small which has no immediate or vital bearing on the situation. As soon as anything arises that would really warrant a grouse--napoo! Tommy Atkins then begins to smile. He grouses when he has to clean his buttons; he grouses loudly and fiercely when a puttee frays to rags, and he grouses when his tea is too hot. But when Tommy runs out of ammunition, is partly surrounded by the enemy, is almost paralyzed by bombardment; when he is literally in the last ditch, with a strip of cold steel the only thing between him and death--then Tommy smiles, then he cracks a joke. Without a thought of himself, without a murmur, he faces any desperate plight. He smiles as he rattles his last bullet into place; he grins as his bayonet snaps from the hilt, and he goes to it hand-to-hand with doubled fists, a tag of a song on his lips, for "Death or Glory." That is Tommy Atkins as I saw him. That is the real Britisher of the Old Country. We shall know him from now on in his true light, and the knowledge will make for a better understanding among the peoples of the English-speaking world. It was Sandy Clark who, eating a hunch of bread and bully beef in a dugout, got partly buried when an H.E. (high explosive) came over. Sandy crawled out unhurt, his sandwich somewhat muddy but intact, and made his way down the trench to a clear space. Here he sat down beside a sentry, finished his bully beef and muddy bread, wiped his mouth, and remarked some ten minutes after the explosion: "That was a close one." Imperturbable under danger; certain of his own immediate immunity from death; confident of his regiment's invincibility; with a deep-rooted love of home and an unalterable belief in the might and right of Britain--there is Tommy Atkins. Looking back from the vantage point of nearly two years, it seems to me that we were somewhat like young unbroken colts. We were restless and untrained, with an overplus of spirits difficult to control. Gradually the English Tommy influenced us until we gained much of his steadiness of purpose, his bulldog tenacity and his insouciance. Tommy never instructed us by word of mouth. He lived his creed in his daily rounds. He never knows that he is beaten, therefore a beating is never his. We have gained the same outlook, simply by association with him. Were I a general and had I a position to _take_, I would choose soldiers of one nation as quickly as another--French, Australians, Africans, Indians, Americans or Canadians. Were I a general and had I a position to _retain_, to hold against all odds, then, without a moment's hesitation, I would send English troops and English troops only.