ss of which he was the arch-begetter. And then I
was amazed at our forbearance. He would go mad, and madness for him was
more decent than sanity.

I had another man who wasn't what you might call normal, and that was
Wake. He was the opposite of shell-shocked, if you understand me. He
had never been properly under fire before, but he didn't give a straw
for it. I had known the same thing with other men, and they generally
ended by crumpling up, for it isn't natural that five or six feet of
human flesh shouldn't be afraid of what can torture and destroy it. The
natural thing is to be always a little scared, like me, but by an
effort of the will and attention to work to contrive to forget it. But
Wake apparently never gave it a thought. He wasn't foolhardy, only
indifferent. He used to go about with a smile on his face, a smile of
contentment. Even the horrors--and we had plenty of them--didn't affect
him. His eyes, which used to be hot, had now a curious open innocence
like Peter's. I would have been happier if he had been a little rattled.

One night, after we had had a bad day of anxiety, I talked to him as we
smoked in what had once been a French dug-out. He was an extra right
arm to me, and I told him so. 'This must be a queer experience for
you,' I said.

'Yes,' he replied, 'it is very wonderful. I did not think a man could
go through it and keep his reason. But I know many things I did not
know before. I know that the soul can be reborn without leaving the
body.'

I stared at him, and he went on without looking at me.

'You're not a classical scholar, Hannay? There was a strange cult in
the ancient world, the worship of Magna Mater--the Great Mother. To
enter into her mysteries the votary passed through a bath of
blood----I think I am passing through that bath. I think that like the
initiate I shall be _renatus in aeternum_--reborn into the eternal.'

I advised him to have a drink, for that talk frightened me. It looked
as if he were becoming what the Scots call 'fey'. Lefroy noticed the
same thing and was always speaking about it. He was as brave as a bull
himself, and with very much the same kind of courage; but Wake's
gallantry perturbed him. 'I can't make the chap out,' he told me. 'He
behaves as if his mind was too full of better things to give a damn for
Boche guns. He doesn't take foolish risks--I don't mean that, but he
behaves as if risks didn't signify. It's positively eerie to see him
making notes