There is indeed a glamour and a pathos about the private soldier,
especially when, as so often happens, he is really only a boy. When
you meet him in the trenches, wet, covered with mud, with tired eyes
speaking of long watches and hours of risky work, he never fails to
greet you with a smile, and you love him for it, and feel that nothing
you can do can make up to him for it. For you have slept in a much
more comfortable place than he has. You have had unlimited tobacco
and cigarettes. You have had a servant to cook for you. You have fared
sumptuously compared with him. You don't feel his superior. You don't
want to be "gracious without undue familiarity." Exactly what you want
to do is a bit doubtful--the Major said he wanted to black his boots
for him, and that is perhaps the best way of expressing it.

When he goes over the top and works away in front of the parapet with
the moon shining full and the machine guns busy all along; when he
gets back to billets, and throws off his cares and bathes and plays
games like any irresponsible schoolboy; even when he breaks bounds and
is found by the M.P. skylarking in ----, you can't help loving him.
Most of all, when he lies still and white with a red stream trickling
from where the sniper's bullet has made a hole through his head, there
comes a lump in your throat that you can't swallow; and you turn away
so that you shan't have to wipe the tears from your eyes.

Gallant souls, those boys, and all the more gallant because they hate
war so much. Their nerves quiver when a shell or a "Minnie" falls into
the trench near them, and then they smile to hide their weakness. They
hate going over the parapet when the machine guns are playing; so
they don't hesitate, but plunge over with a smile to hide their fears.
Their cure for every mental worry is a smile, their answer to every
prompting of fear is a plunge. They have no philosophy or fanaticism