an officers had heard such stories; they regarded England with a
kind of worship. As men who hoped to be brave but were untested, they
found something mystic and well-nigh incredible in such utter courage.
The consumptive racing across the Atlantic that he might do something
for England before death took him, made this spirit real to them.

We travelled to London as a party and there for a time we held
together. The night before several set out for France, we had a
farewell gathering. The consumptive, who had just obtained his
commission, was in particularly high feather; he brought with him a
friend, a civilian official in the Foreign Office. Please picture the
group: all men who had come from distant parts of the world to do one
job; men in the army, navy, and flying service; every one in uniform
except the stranger.

Talk developed along the line of our absolute certainty as to complete
and final victory. The civilian stranger commenced to raise his voice
in dissent. We disputed his statements. He then set to work to run
through the entire argument of pessimism: America was too far away to
be effective; Russia was collapsing; France was exhausted; England had
reached the zenith of her endeavour; Italy was not united in purpose.
On every front he saw a black cloud rising and took a dyspeptic's
delight in describing it as a little blacker than he saw it. There was
an apostolic zeal about the man's dreary earnestness. He spoke with
that air of authority which is not uncommon with civilian Government
officials. The Americans stared rather than listened; this was not
the mystic and utter courage which they had expected to find well-nigh
incredible. Their own passion far out-topped it.

The argument reached a sudden climax. There were wounded officers
present. One of them said, "You wouldn't speak that way if you had the
foggiest conception of the kind of chaps we have in the trenches."

"It makes no difference what kind they are," the pessimist replied
intolerantly. "I'm asking you to face facts. Because you've succeeded
in an attack, you soldiers seem to think that the war is ended. You
base your arguments all the time on your little local knowledge of
your own particular front."

The discussion ceased abruptly. Every one sprang up. Voices strove
together in advising this "facer of facts" to get into khaki and
to go to where he could obtain precisely the same kind of little
local knowledge--perhaps, a few wounds as