with a strip of cold steel the only thing between him and death--then
Tommy smiles, then he cracks a joke. Without a thought of himself, without
a murmur, he faces any desperate plight.

He smiles as he rattles his last bullet into place; he grins as his bayonet
snaps from the hilt, and he goes to it hand-to-hand with doubled fists, a
tag of a song on his lips, for "Death or Glory."

That is Tommy Atkins as I saw him. That is the real Britisher of the Old
Country. We shall know him from now on in his true light, and the knowledge
will make for a better understanding among the peoples of the
English-speaking world.

It was Sandy Clark who, eating a hunch of bread and bully beef in a dugout,
got partly buried when an H.E. (high explosive) came over. Sandy crawled
out unhurt, his sandwich somewhat muddy but intact, and made his way down
the trench to a clear space. Here he sat down beside a sentry, finished his
bully beef and muddy bread, wiped his mouth, and remarked some ten minutes
after the explosion: "That was a close one."

Imperturbable under danger; certain of his own immediate immunity from
death; confident of his regiment's invincibility; with a deep-rooted love
of home and an unalterable belief in the might and right of Britain--there
is Tommy Atkins.

Looking back from the vantage point of nearly two years, it seems to me
that we were somewhat like young unbroken colts. We were restless and
untrained, with an overplus of spirits difficult to control. Gradually the
English Tommy influenced us until we gained much of his steadiness of
purpose, his bulldog tenacity and his insouciance.