f your men?" I asked him. I am going to tell you
his answer, just as he made it.

"Their spirit?" he said, musingly. "Well, just before we came to this
billet to rest we were in a tightish corner on the Somme. One of my
youngest men was hit--a shell came near to taking his arm clean off,
so that it was left just hanging to his shoulders. He was only about
eighteen years old, poor chap. It was a bad wound, but, as sometimes
happens, it didn't make him unconscious--then. And when he realized
what had happened to him, and saw his arm hanging limp, so that he
could know he was bound to lose it, he began to cry.

"'What's the trouble?' I asked him, hurrying over to him. I was sorry
enough for him, but you've got to keep up the morale of your men.
'Soldiers don't cry when they're wounded, my lad.'

"'I'm not crying because I'm wounded, sir!' he fired back at me. And
I won't say he was quite as respectful as a private is supposed to be
when he's talking to an officer! 'Just take a look at that, sir!' And
he pointed to his wound. And then he cried out:

"'And I haven't killed a German yet!' he said, bitterly. 'Isn't that
hard lines, sir?'

"That is the spirit of my men!"

I made many good friends while I was roaming around the country just
behind the front. I wonder how many of them I shall keep--how many of
them death will spare to shake my hand again when peace is restored!
There was a Gordon Highlander, a fine young officer, of whom I became
particularly fond while I was at Tramecourt. I had a very long talk
with him, and I thought of him often, afterward, because he made me
think of John. He was just such a fine young type of Briton as my boy
had been.

Months later, when I was back in Britain, and giving a performance at
Manchester, there was a knock at the door of my dressing-room.

"Come in!" I called.

The door was pushed open and a man came in with great blue glasses
covering his eyes. He had a stick, and he groped his way toward me. I
did not know him at all at first--and then, suddenly, with a shock, I
recognized him as my fine young Gordon Highlander of the rest billet
near Tramecourt.

"My God--it's you, Mac!" I said, deeply shocked.

"Yes," he said, quietly. His voice had changed, greatly. "Yes, it's
I, Harry."

He was almost totally blind, and he did not know whether his eyes
would get better or worse.

"Do you remember all the lads you met at the billet where you came to
sing for us the first t