families were the least disturbed people on board. I used to watch
them as one might watch condemned prisoners in their cells. Their
apparent indifference was unintelligible to me. They lived their
daily present, contented and unruffled, just as if it were going to be
their present always. I accused them of being lacking in imagination.
I saw them lying dead on battlefields. I saw them dragging on into old
age, with the spine of life broken, mutilated and mauled. I saw them
in desperately tight corners, fighting in ruined villages with sword
and bayonet. But they joked, laughed, played with their kiddies and
seemed to have no realisation of the horrors to which they were
going. There was a world-famous aviator, who had gone back on his
marriage promise that he would abandon his aerial adventures. He was
hurrying to join the French Flying Corps. He and his young wife used
to play deck-tennis every morning as lightheartedly as if they were
travelling to Europe for a lark. In my many accusations of these men's
indifference I never accused them of courage. Courage, as I had
thought of it up to that time, was a grim affair of teeth set, sad
eyes and clenched hands--the kind of "My head is bloody but unbowed"
determination described in Henley's poem.

When we had arrived safe in port we were held up for some time. A tug
came out, bringing a lot of artificers who at once set to work tearing
out the fittings of the ship that she might be converted into a
transport. Here again I witnessed a contrast between the soldierly and
the civilian attitude. The civilians, with their easily postponed
engagements, fumed and fretted at the delay in getting ashore. The
officers took the inconvenience with philosophical good-humour. While
the panelling and electric-light fittings were being ripped out, they
sat among the debris and played cards. There was heaps of time for
their appointment--it was only with wounds and Death. To me, as a