If in time of peace the soldier considers a rifle carelessly, and even resents having to carry it about with him, he looks on it differently on service, knowing as he does that his life may depend on the quality of the weapon and his ability to use it at almost any minute of the day or night. The confirmed “grouser” of peace time, who will make a fuss over having to put twenty rounds of blank ammunition in his bandolier to go out on a field-day, will swing his three bandoliers of ball cartridges on to his person without a word of complaint, for he knows that he may need every round. Values alter amazingly on service; the man with a box of matches, when one has been away from the base for a few days, is a person of importance, and a mere cigarette is worth far more than its weight in gold. In General Rundle’s column during the South African war, half a biscuit was something to fight for, and the men who thought it such had many a time thrown away the same sort of unpalatable biscuits and bought bread to eat instead. An ant-heap acquired a new significance, for it might be the means of saving a man’s life at any time, and among mounted men a “fresh” horse, which might give its rider some trouble at the time of mounting, was no longer to be avoided, for by its freshness it showed that it had plenty of spirit and go about it, spirit that might take a man out of rifle range at a critical moment, when the slower class of mount might come out of action without its rider. This reversal of the circumstances of ordinary life produces lasting effect on men; no man who has undergone the realities of active service comes back to the average of life unchanged. The difference in him may not be apparent at a casual glance, but it is there, for the rest of his life. He has looked on death at close quarters, and, whatever his intelligence may be--whether he be gutter-snipe or ’Varsity man, sage or fool--he has a clearer realisation of the ultimate values of things. One may count the Army in peace time as a great training school out of which men come moulded to a definite pattern, and yet retaining their individuality. But active service is a fire through which men pass, emerging on the far side purified of little aims to a greater or less extent, according to the material on which the fire has to work. For many--all honour to them and to those who mourn their loss--it is a destroying fire.