Another new opportunity for courage is given by the work of the motor-cycle despatch-rider. There is in it adventure, danger, hardship and every other element of romance. The despatch-rider has to take his machine over rough fields and roads made dangerous by shell holes. He has often experiences as bad as the one which Lance-Corporal Davies, of the Welsh Fusiliers, thus describes: "I had to accompany one of the sergeants in carrying a despatch across the battlefield under fire. We had not gone far before the sergeant was shot dead. I took the despatch from his keeping with all haste and made at top speed for the staff officers for whom it was intended. As I delivered the despatch I dropped into a dead faint from exhaustion, and when I came round I found myself in the field hospital." The despatch-rider has to pass sentries who shoot at sight, and sometimes he has to go through even the lines of the enemy. CHAPTER III Courage and Discipline Before the last Boer War British Army officers did not take their profession as seriously as did Continental military men. A regiment was a club and many came into it merely to have a good time. After the lessons of the Boer War all this changed. Zeal and energy took hold of our officers and they began to think that they were bound in honour to make themselves efficient. And they have done so. The rank and file know this, and respect them for it. One soldier ended a letter with these words: "We are officered by excellent men, and we feel that we are being led. Their coolness when in a tight corner had a great effect upon the men and pulled us through often." In one of his letters at the beginning of the war a sergeant of the Buffs remarked, "It is wonderful, with all they have to do, how helpful and kind the officers are. They know their work to their finger tips. If some of you at home who have spoken sneeringly of British officers could have seen how they handled their men and shirked nothing you would be ashamed of yourselves." The other day Lord Raglan, Lieutenant-Governor of the Isle of Man, related an incident which shows what a soldier will do for his officer. He said that his son, who is a lieutenant in the Welsh Regiment, was seriously wounded in Belgium, and that a private soldier first bound up the wound, and then said, "They shall not hit you again, sir." He then lay down in front of his wounded officer so that his own body would protect him from the fire of the enemy.