I think this picture of dumb subjection to duty made me realise more than anything the sheer cost of victory in spiritual energy to the men who bought it with their blood. While London, New York and Paris went mad, climbing lamp-posts, changing hats, dragging tin cans through the streets and converting themselves into impromptu jazz bands, these men, whose valour was being commemorated, pulled in to the side of the road, felt cold, and limped back to the nearest town in search of billets. They were “sort of numb.” They’d been through too much to feel either happy or sad. “Well, that’s that,” they had said, and thanked God for the luxury of a secure night’s rest and the comfort of a roof above their heads. And yet, why I should have been so surprised I don’t quite know. The Major’s picture was consistent with everything I had learned of the fighting man—precisely what one might have expected. That I should have been surprised only proves to me how thoroughly normal and civilian we are beneath our khaki. Here am I, a few weeks out of the line, finding myself amazed at conduct which would have been mine, had I lasted. “Well, that’s that”—it sums up in a phrase the whole philosophy of the Front, which teaches:—“Don’t whine. Endure what you can’t alter. Get over the hard bits of the road by pushing forward. Never know when you’re licked. Never be elated when you’ve won. Whether you win or lose, don’t sit down; seize on to the next most difficult thing that you may conquer. For it’s not the winning or the losing, it’s the eternal trying that counts—And that’s that.” It is the “eternal trying” of my last fight that lives most vividly in my memory. We were in that murder-hole, you will remember, to the left of the Cambrai-Arras road. Our job was to smash the Hindenburg Line and to go as much further as our strength would carry us. Our objective was to be the ending of the war or, in the words of the Major, “Berlin or nothing.” The night before the show the enemy made a last determined effort to knock us out. We had distinct orders not to retaliate; our first round was to be fired with the opening of the offensive. So we had to lie down in silence and take our punishment. Shortly after sunset the trouble commenced. The enemy must have run forward a number of guns.