fashion away from home are inclined to get grouchy on one another.

One of the officers in speaking of this said that early in the autumn
the reserves were pretty homesick. They wanted to get back to their
wives and children. Nostalgia, next to hunger, is the worst thing for a
soldier. Commanders were worried. But as winter wore on the spirit
changed. The soldiers began to feel the spell of their democratic
comradeship. The fact that they had fought together and survived
together played its part; and individualism was sunk in the one
thought that they were there for France. The fellowship of a cause
taught them patience, brought them cheer. Another thing was the
increasing sense of team play, of confidence in victory, which holds a
ball team, a business enterprise, or an army together. Every day the
organization of the army was improving; every day that indescribable
and subtle element of satisfaction that the Germans were securely
held was growing.

Every Frenchman saves something of his income; madame sees to it
that he does. He knows that if he dies he will not leave wife and
children penniless. His son, not yet old enough to fight, will come on
to take his place. Men at home of twenty-two or three years and
unmarried, men of twenty-eight or thirty years and not long married,
and men of forty with some money put by, will, in turn, understand
how their own class feels.

In ten minutes you had entered into the hearts of this single company
in a way that made you feel that you had got into the heart of the
whole French army. When you asked them if they would like to go
home they didn't say "No!" all in a chorus, as if that were what the
colonel had told them to say. They obey the colonel, but their