You dread to tell them that “when the bullet went in my leg the main artery was severed, and they are going to take part of it off and leave me a cripple for life.” Still harder is it to write: “I am wounded, and do not hope to live; I am going and so cannot come home as I hoped; I send all my love.” And then there is an echo of infinity and immortality in the thought, “When a fellow gets shot you never think he is gone, but that he will come back.” Someone softly starts singing “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” and it runs sweetly along the ranks, the muffled prayer of inextinguishable hearts for a soul in flight. But “Black Marias” and “Jack Johnsons” and “coal-boxes,” as you call the enemy’s howitzer shells, are driving along, and you accept them with your usual Atkins philosophy. The gun you know as “Aunt Sally” is flopping her big shells at you; “Calamity Jane” salutes you in odd volumes from miles away, and “Belching Billy” chimes in now and then. “Whistling Rufus,” whose shells are smaller, is also in the turmoil, but, being without fear of the big brethren, you merely have a contempt for him. Still, the whole roar keeps you from the hour’s sleep you are entitled to snatch, and therefore you gently swear at the Kaiser as “William the Weed,” nickname Von Kluck “Old Von o’Clock,” and grimly subscribe to the Uhlans as “Ewe-lambs.” Always you remain the good sportsman, saying, “Put me a shilling on Gravelotte for the Cesarewitch, if this letter is in time”; or, “Fancy Robins drawing the Palace 1--1. Cheers!” What was it you said when the doctor was bandaging your shattered knee? That you wouldn’t be able to play for Maidstone United at Christmas! You had forgotten the remark. Possibly you had also forgotten that four of you, and rather “bad cases,” enjoyed “nap” on the top of a Red Cross motor-lorry, all the way to the hospital. One of you contained six bullets, and he said on the operating-table, “There will be enough to make the missus a pair of earrings.” Another of you, a big Highlander, had pleaded not to be taken from the firing line because “I have still some shots left and I can do something with them.” “Keep smiling” is your motto; “there’s only one winner in this game--roll on, England.”