done for it. Wouldn't it be much better to trust to us, give us the
order to fix bayonets and drive those Boches out of their trenches
over there? You'd see if the Territorials couldn't do it as well as
the Regulars.... And then one would have a chance of getting warm."

I felt sure that he spoke the truth, and that his opinion was shared
by the majority of his companions. But our good comrades of the
Territorial Force have no conception of the vigour, the suppleness,
and of the fulness of youth required to charge up to the enemy's line
under concentrated fire and to cut the complex network of barbed wire
that bars the road. Our chiefs were well advised in placing these
troops where they were, in those lines of trenches scientifically
constructed and protected, where their courage and tenacity would be
invaluable in case of attack, and where they would know better than
any others how to carry out the orders given to us: "Hold on till
death." Leave to the young soldiers the sublime and perilous task of
rushing upon the enemy when he is hidden behind the shelter of his
_fougades_, his parapets, and his artificial brambles; and entrust to
the brave Territorials the more obscure but not less glorious work of
mounting guard along our front.

I could make them out in the moonlight, standing silent and alert, in
groups of two or three. Perched on the ledge of earth which raised
them to the height of the parapet, they had their eyes wide open in
the darkness, looking towards the enemy. Their loaded rifles were
placed in front of them, between two clods of hardened earth. They
neither complained nor uttered a word, but suffered nobly. They
understand that they must. Ah! where now were the fine tirades of
pothouse orators and public meetings? Where now were the oaths to
revolt, the solemn denials and the blasphemies pronounced against the
Fatherland? All was forgotten, wiped out from the records. If we could
have questioned those men who stood there shivering, chilled to the
bone, watching over the safety of the country, not one of them,
certainly, would have confessed that he was ever one of the renegades
of yore. And yet if one were to search among the bravest, among the
most resigned, among the best, thousands of them would be discovered.
Heaven grant that this miracle, wrought by the war, may be prolonged
far beyond the days of the struggle, and then we shall not think that
our brothers' blood has been spilt in vain.

We