of whose lives had been shaped for this Day. And we had to meet them
with--clerks! It seemed hopeless and a mockery. But when he saw
Sydney Baxter the chief realised that often when the spirit is willing
the flesh becomes strong; that the British fighting breed was not
dead, though the black office coat had misled the German. How many
times have you and I said "he was the last man I should have thought
would have made a soldier." Well, Sydney Baxter was that last man. And
he made a first-class soldier. Let this country never forget it. He,
and the thousands like him, outnumbered and outgunned, fought the
Prussian Guard, the most finished product of the German military
machine, and halted them, held them, beat them. In equal fight they
thrashed them. Think of it in the light of history. The greatest and
most wonderfully equipped and trained army the world has ever known
beaten in fair fight by an army of clerks, schoolmasters,
stockbrokers, University men, street waifs, shopkeepers, labourers,
counter-jumpers, most of whom did not know one end of a rifle from the
other when war was declared. Sydney Baxter was one of that army. That
is why I am telling his story. It will make strange and very salutary
reading for Prussian arrogance--some day.




One Young Man on Active Service




CHAPTER IV