d
ones get, or seem to get, the worst of the deal; they certainly play
for the most part in hard luck. But then they take risks that the
"safety-first" soldier never takes.

CHAPTER X

THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE SIGHTLESS

When I began to write this personal narrative I had two main thoughts in
mind. My first was that no work written on the World War would be
complete without some account of the transference of the soldier back
from khaki to mufti; my second, and to my mind the more important, was
to show the man himself, suffering from a serious handicap, that one of
the greatest truths in this life of ours is: there is nothing that a man
cannot do, if he _has_ to. This needs explanation. There are few men who
have come out of this war just as they went into it. Apart from injuries
they have sustained, there is unavoidably a new outlook upon life,
gained by their sojourn in the trenches. No matter who the man is, no
matter how settled were his views on the management of this old world,
his stay "over there" has changed his point of view. His whole mental
attitude has undergone something of the nature of a revolution in the
crucible of war. Up the "line," he saw things stripped to the buff, saw
life and death in all their nakedness. The veneer of so-called
civilization has been worn off, and the _real man_ shows through. That,
to my mind, is why friendships made amid the blood, mud, hunger, and
grime of the trenches are friendships that will endure through life. It
is there _Man_ meets _Man_, and admires him. I have met men in the
trenches to whom, had I met them in ordinary life, I would not have
given a second thought. When they first came to the front they were
known as "sissies," but not for long. They, for the most part, quickly
acquired that character and bearing that is the rule of the trenches.
There were exceptions, of course, but not many. As I write there comes
to my mind a little incident that happened in a dug-out in a trench
known to the 9th Brigade as Mill Street. Those who were there at the
time will remember it from the fact that the body of a French soldier
was lying half buried under the parapet at one of the entrances. Poor
Frenchy's whole right side was showing from the foot to the waist line.
The day of which I write had been rather warm. A working party had been
out repairing a firing step and revetting the trench. A "sissy" came
down the steps of the dug-out, mopping his forehead with a