The Soul of the Soldier: Sketches from the Western Battle-FrontTiplady, Thomas
History
The Soul of the Soldier: Sketches from the Western Battle-Front
Tiplady, Thomas
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
There is a widespread fatalism at the Front, but it is the fatalism of
Christ rather than of old Omar Khayyam: "Take no thought for your life
... for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these
things, but seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.
Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil
thereof." And this works. It enables men to "put a cheerful courage
on" and do their duty. There is none of the paralysis of will and
cessation of effort which follows the fatalistic philosophy of the East.
All that Omar Khayyam’s fatalism leaves a man to strive after is "Red,
Red Wine," in which he drowns memory, honor and reputation and
character. When he has passed from among his peers, there is nothing
left to remember him by but a "turned-down empty glass." The Christian
fatalism at the Front destroys no man’s initiative, but keeps him merry
and bright, and helps him to "do his bit." When he shall pass from the
banqueting-house of life, into the Great Unexplored, he will leave as
his memorial, not a turned-down glass, but a world redeemed from tyranny
and wrong.
*X*
*"ETON BOYS NEVER DUCK!"*
An army is more courageous than the individuals who compose it. The
coward finds sufficient courage for his job while doing it with his
regiment, and the brave is at his bravest. He has a courage which is
not his own but which, somehow, he puts on with his uniform. He does
deeds of daring he could not have done as a civilian. The army has a
corporate courage and each soldier receives a portion of it just as he
receives a ration of the army’s food. It is added to what he has of his
own.
The badge of the army is courage. When a recruit joins the army he
knows that he is putting away the civilian standard of courage with his
derby hat, and is putting on the soldier’s standard of courage with his
uniform. His great fear is that he will not be able to live up to it.
He wonders if he is made of the stuff that produces heroes. He is a
mystery to himself and has a haunting fear that there may be a strain of
the coward in his make-up. He wishes it were possible to have a
rehearsal for he would rather die than fail on the appointed day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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