y paragraphs. Get forward, always
get forward, is their intention. Make your fire effective, make it
destructive, make it overwhelming. With word, with blackboard plan and
section, with theory, with practical illustration, each night they lay
before us some new field of this really awful knowledge. We study it
eagerly. Two years ago I should have been horrified at these doctrines
that they preach. Today I regard knowledge of them, by a sufficient
number of able-bodied men, as the great need of the country.

So much, dear mother, of things which to speak of in detail would only
pain your kind heart. As to the men that teach us, I can say that they
improve upon acquaintance. Each of them, the captain and lieutenant, has
his own way of teaching. In the lieutenant a coolness of statement that
seems to imply a calm unshakableness, as of one who has measured all
risks and sees that they amount to nothing. In the captain equal
clearness but more fire. Both see that the only safety is in attack. They
answer our questions quite differently, the lieutenant with a crisp
completeness that leaves nothing to inquire but much to ponder on, the
captain with an illuminating phrase that humanizes everything and brings
instant understanding. Their men will go wherever they send them in a
fight, for the lieutenant because they know he must be right, for the
captain because they feel it.

We never, I think, can know the lieutenant very well, because of that
quality which I saw in him at his first appearance before us, an
aloofness that taunts us into the determination to please him. The
captain I am sure we know already, a worker, a driver, but one who shows
us that he understands our mistakes by the very keenness of his irony. "I
have found you men to place the hip anywhere between the armpit and the
knee. So I will place it for you at the watch pocket. That is your
official hip, gentlemen." "Yes, skirmishers in Europe are now wearing
steel helmets. But if you men don't better learn to keep under cover you
won't need steel helmets, you'll need battleships." "You can't take too
many precautions in the use of your guns. In this game with me out in
front, I'm an advocate of safety first."

The men like him, but more than that, they respect him. You know, mother,
that I can tell something at first hand about learning one's job. But
these officers put the average civilian to shame. I doubt if there is
stronger professional feeling, or a highe