s and even then asked to lead the stretcher-bearers who
volunteered on a search-party for his "pals."

"Physical courage was very common in the war," said a friend of mine who
saw nothing of war. "It is proved that physical courage is the commonest
quality of mankind, as moral courage is the rarest." But that soldier's
courage was spiritual, and there were many like him in the battles of
the Somme and in other later battles as tragic as those.

IX

I have told how, before "The Big Push," as we called the beginning of
these battles, little towns of tents were built under the sign of the
Red Cross. For a time they were inhabited only by medical officers,
nurses, and orderlies, busily getting ready for a sudden invasion,
and spending their surplus energy, which seemed inexhaustible, on the
decoration of their camps by chalk-lined paths, red crosses painted on
canvas or built up in red and white chalk on leveled earth, and flowers
planted outside the tents--all very pretty and picturesque in the
sunshine and the breezes over the valley of the Somme.

On the morning of battle the doctors, nurses, and orderlies waited for
their patients and said, "Now we shan't be long!" They were merry and
bright with that wonderful cheerfulness which enabled them to face
the tragedy of mangled manhood without horror, and almost, it seemed,
without pity, because it was their work, and they were there to heal
what might be healed. It was with a rush that their first cases came,
and the M.O.'s whistled and said, "Ye gods! how many more?" Many more.
The tide did not slacken. It became a spate brought down by waves of
ambulances. Three thousand wounded came to Daours on the Somme, three
thousand to Corbie, thousands to Dernancourt, Heilly, Puchevillers,
Toutencourt, and many other "clearing stations."

At Daours the tents were filled to overflowing, until there was no more
room. The wounded were laid down on the grass to wait their turn for
the surgeon's knife. Some of them crawled over to haycocks and covered
themselves with hay and went to sleep, as I saw them sleeping there,
like dead men. Here and there shell-shocked boys sat weeping or moaning,
and shaking with an ague. Most of the wounded were quiet and did not
give any groan or moan. The lightly wounded sat in groups, telling their
adventures, cursing the German machine-gunners. Young officers spoke in
a different way, and with that sporting spirit which they had learned in
p