that "Keep cool and crack a joke" spirit that is so splendidly Anglo-Saxon.

I am not an Englishman, and I did not think very much of an Englishman
before going overseas. I regarded him more or less as not "worth while." It
did not take a year to convince me that the Englishman is very much "worth
while."

The English soldier chums up quickly. The traditional formality and
conventionality of the English are traditions only. There is none of it in
the trenches.

Discipline there is, strict discipline, among men and officers. Between
officer and man there is a marked respect, and a marked good fellowship
which never degenerates into familiarity.

There is love between the English officer and the English soldier. A love
that has been proved many times, when the commissioned man has sacrificed
his life to save the man of lower rank; when the private has crossed the
pathway of hell itself to save a fallen leader.

The English soldier, and when I say English I mean to include Welsh, Scotch
and Irish, reserves to himself the right to "grouse." He grouses at
everything great or small which has no immediate or vital bearing on the
situation. As soon as anything arises that would really warrant a
grouse--napoo! Tommy Atkins then begins to smile. He grouses when he has to
clean his buttons; he grouses loudly and fiercely when a puttee frays to
rags, and he grouses when his tea is too hot.

But when Tommy runs out of ammunition, is partly surrounded by the enemy,
is almost paralyzed by bombardment; when he is literally in the last ditch,