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.

Tommy never instructed us by word of mouth. He lived his creed in his daily
rounds. He never knows that he is beaten, therefore a beating is never his.
We have gained the same outlook, simply by association with him.

Were I a general and had I a position to _take_, I would choose soldiers of
one nation as quickly as another--French, Australians, Africans, Indians,
Americans or Canadians. Were I a general and had I a position to _retain_,
to hold against all odds, then, without a moment's hesitation, I would send
English troops and English troops only.

Now and again an American or a Canadian newspaper would come our way.
"Anything to read" is a never-ending cry at the front, and every scrap of
newspaper is read, discussed and read again. In the early days of 1914-15,
these newspapers would have long and weighty editorials which called forth
longer and weightier letters from "veritas" and "old subscriber." We boys
read those editorials and letters, and wondered; wondered how sane men
could waste time in writing such stuff, how sane men could set it in type
and print it, and more than all we wondered how sane men could read it.
"Who started the war?" they asked.

"Bah!" we would say to one another, "who