So the night dragged on towards the lemon dawn, with star-shells and distant shell-bursts and the throb of musketry in the plain. With the coming of the light the flares were seen no more, but the angry drumming of rifles never ceased. Daybreak showed the crumbling towers of Ypres, with the smoke of shell-bursts encircling them like a funeral wreath, but the morning mists enshrouded the trenches in the plain. CHAPTER X THE COMRADESHIP OF THE TRENCHES “All the bright company of Heaven Hold him in their high comradeship, The Dog-Star and the Sisters Seven, Orion’s Belt and sworded hip ... Through joy and blindness he shall know, Not caring much to know, that still Nor lead nor shell shall reach him, so That it be not the Destined Will.” (_“Into Battle,” by Captain Julian Grenfell, killed in action, Ypres, May, 1915._) The firing-line is the touchstone of character. It is the final instance. There is no appeal beyond it. A man may have shown himself at home to be the best of officers, self-possessed, self-reliant, conscientious, thoughtful for his men; but half an hour’s “frightfulness” at the front can undo the good impression made in months of home training. A good sergeant will relieve an officer of a great deal of routine in ordinary circumstances, but when the company comes under fire the sergeant will, like the men, lean unconsciously on the moral strength of the officer. No man can hope to be eternally master of his nerves. Modern shell-fire wears the nerves away. A man who would lead his platoon fearlessly into the jaws of hell may feel himself inwardly cringing when he hears the long high whistle of a shell, mingling with the ominous hiss that means it is nearing the end of its journey. But if a man is what the army calls “a good officer,” the first thought that will rise to the surface in him when he comes under fire is, “The men.” He will know that, almost automatically, the men are watching him to see what he will do. Be they the toughest of veterans, and he the greenest of “subs.,” there is always a subconscious disposition in the soldier under fire to mould himself on the example given by an officer. An officer who is always exhorting his men to be careful (and by this I do not mean the officer who takes sensible measures to check the irrepressible foolhardiness of the British soldier under fire), who indulges in exaggerated demonstrations of horror when a shell shatters a man to fragments at his very elbow, will “rot” the finest company. The men will begin to think before they act, and in consequence lose that singleness of purpose that takes the soldier straight to his appointed goal, that makes just the difference between good and bad troops.