The argument reached a sudden climax. There were wounded officers
present. One of them said, "You wouldn't speak that way if you had the
foggiest conception of the kind of chaps we have in the trenches."

"It makes no difference what kind they are," the pessimist replied
intolerantly. "I'm asking you to face facts. Because you've succeeded
in an attack, you soldiers seem to think that the war is ended. You
base your arguments all the time on your little local knowledge of
your own particular front."

The discussion ceased abruptly. Every one sprang up. Voices strove
together in advising this "facer of facts" to get into khaki and
to go to where he could obtain precisely the same kind of little
local knowledge--perhaps, a few wounds as well. His presence was
dishonourable--contaminating. We filed out and left him sitting humped
in a chair, looking puzzled and pathetic, murmuring, "But I thought I
was among friends."

My last clear-cut recollection is of a chubby young American
Naval Airman standing over him, with clenched fists, passionately
instructing him in the spiritual geography of America. That's one
type of fool; the type who specialises in catastrophe; the type who in
eternally facing up to facts, takes no account of that magic quality,
courage, which can make one man more terrible than an army; the type
who is so profoundly well-informed, about externals, that he ignores
the mightiness of soul that can remould externals to spiritual
purposes. Were I a German, the spectacle of that solitary consumptive
leaving the climate which meant life to him and hastening home to give
just six months of service to his country, would be more menacing than
the loss of an entire corps frontage.