For they are the men who have been through the _Trommelfeuer_.

Strong men arrive from that experience shaking like leaves in the wind.
I have seen one of our own youngsters--a boy who had fought a great
fight all through the dark hours, and who had refused to come back when
he was first ordered to--I have seen him unable to keep still for an
instant after the strain, and yet ready to fight on till he dropped;
physically almost a wreck, but with his wits as sharp and his spirits as
keen as a steel chisel. I have seen other Australians who, after doing
glorious work through thirty or forty hours of unimaginable strain,
buried and buried and buried again and still working like tigers, have
broken down and collapsed, unable to stand or to walk, unable to move an
arm except limply, as if it were string; ready to weep like little
children.

It is the method which the German invented for his own use. For a year
and a half he had a monopoly--British soldiers had to hang on as best
they could under the knowledge that the enemy had more guns and more
shell than they, and bigger shell at that. But at last the weapon seems
to have been turned against him. No doubt his armaments and munitions
are growing fast, but ours have for the moment overtaken them. And hell
though it is for both sides--something which no soldiers in the world's
history ever yet had to endure--it is mostly better for us at present
than for the Germans. I have heard men coming out of the thick of it
say, "Well, I'm glad I'm not a Hun."

Now, here is what it means. There is no good done by describing the
particular horrors of war--God knows those who see them want to forget
them as soon as they can. But it is just as well to know what the work
in the munition factories means to _your_ friends--_your_ sons and