I've owed you a letter for some time, but I've been getting very little
leisure. You can't send steel messages to the Kaiser and love-notes to
your family in the same breath.

I am amazed at the spirit you three are showing and almighty proud that
you can muster such courage. I suppose none of us quite realised our
strength till it came to the test. There was a time when we all doubted
our own heroism. I think we were typical of our age. Every novel of the
past ten years has been more or less a study in sentiment and
self-distrust. We used to wonder what kind of stuff Drake's men were
made of that they could jest while they died. We used to contrast
ourselves with them to our own disfavour. Well, we know now that when
there's a New World to be discovered we can still rise up reincarnated
into spiritual pirates. It wasn't the men of our age who were at fault,
but the New World that was lacking. Our New World is the Kingdom of
Heroism, the doors of which are flung so wide that the meanest of us may
enter. I know men out here who are the dependable daredevils of their
brigades, who in peace times were nuisances and as soon as peace is
declared will become nuisances again. At the moment they're fine,
laughing at Death and smiling at the chance of agony. There's a man I
know of who had a record sheet of crimes. When he was out of action he
was always drunk and up for office. To get rid of him, they put him into
the trench mortars and within a month he had won his D.C.M. He came out
and went on the spree--this particular spree consisted in stripping a
Highland officer of his kilts on a moonlight night. For this he was
sentenced to several months in a military prison, but asked to be
allowed to serve his sentence in the trenches. He came out from his
punishment a King's sergeant--which means that whatever he did nobody
could degrade him. He got this for lifting his trench mortar over the