behind the lines in pleasant châteaux of France, far from shell fire, growing “flower borders” on their breasts. Men talked like that, with increasing irony. They were unfair, often. It’s not easy to be fair when one’s certain death is being ordered by influential folk who do not share the risks. THE PEOPLE AT HOME For England’s sake! Yes, those young officers and men who went through the battles of the Somme and many others, seeing no end to the war, and the only chance of life in a lucky wound, endured everything of fear and filth, because at the back of their minds and hidden in their hearts was the remembrance of some home or plot of earth, some old village with an old church, which meant to them—England, or Scotland, or Wales. They “stuck it” all because in their spirit, consciously or unconsciously, was the love of their country, and in their blood the old urge of its pride. But as the war went on even this, though it was never lost and flamed up again in the darkest hours, was overcast by doubts and angers and ironies. They were all so damned cheerful in little old England! They took the losses of men as a matter of course. Business as usual and keep the home fires burning! That was all very well, but those “charity bazaars for the poor dear wounded,” all that jazz and dancing and love-making, giving the boys a good time in their seven days’ leave, earning wonderful wages in the munition works, making enormous profits out of shipping and contracts, spending their money like water, filling the theatres, keeping up the spirit of the nation, wasn’t it too much of a good thing when viewed from the angle of a trench with one’s pals’ dead bodies in No Man’s Land, and a blasted world around one, and death screaming overhead? The profiteers were determined to “see this thing through,” to the bitter end. The Statesmen would fight to the last man. The old gentlemen on military service boards were outraged by poor devils with wives and babes who tried to evade conscription. At dinner parties and banquets these same old gentlemen, in clean linen, grew purple in the face with eloquence about the unthinkable shame of peace without victory. They would sacrifice their last son, or at least all their numerous nephews, on the altar of patriotism. They would go without sugar to the end of time rather than yield to a brutal enemy. Noble sentiments! But some of the sons and the numerous nephews who were going to be sacrificed on the altar of patriotism were secretly hoping that diplomacy, or strategy, or some miracle of God might find some decent way of peace before that sacrifice was accomplished. They were in love with life, those boys of ours. They didn’t want to die, strange as it may have seemed to those who thought it was their duty to die and look pleasant about it.