The Magic Carpet of Baghdad is not a fiction after all. In the twinkling of an eye my white handkerchief had carried every boy and man to his home, and placed him by the fireside. I saw it in their eyes and heard it in the sadness and wistfulness of their voices as they ejaculated "A-ah!" They had not seen a white handkerchief for months. The last they saw was at home. A vision of home flashed before their minds and they were back in the dear old days of peace when they used white handkerchiefs and khaki ones were unknown to them. If in battle they were to see Germans waving white handkerchiefs, I think it would make them savage and unwilling to give quarter. They would think the enemy was taunting them with all they had lost. And they would be maddened by the thought that here were the very men who, by their war-lust, had caused them to lose it. For a German to wave a white handkerchief before a British soldier would be as dangerous as flaunting a red flag before a bull. It would bring death rather than pity. Anything of pure white is rare at the front, and it has gradually taken on a meaning it never held before. About the only white thing we have is the paper we write home on, and that use of the color helps to sanctify it in the shrine of the heart. In the army it is a term of supreme praise to call a man _white_. When you say a comrade is a "_white man_" there is no more to be said. It is worth more than the Victoria Cross with its red ribbon, for it includes gallantry, and adds to it goodness. A man must be brave to be called white and he must be generous, noble and good. To reach whiteness is a great achievement. To be dubbed white is, in the army, like being dubbed knight at King Arthur’s Court or canonized saint in the Church. He stands out among a soldier’s comrades distinct as a white handkerchief among khaki ones.