It is not good for troops to sup entirely on horrors and also to breakfast and lunch on them.  So after in the trenches one regiment has been pounded it is withdrawn for a day or two and kept in reserve.  The English Tommies spend this period of recuperating in playing football and cards.  When the English learned this they forwarded so many thousands of packs of cards to the distributing depot that the War Office had to request them not to send any more.  When the English officers are granted leave of absence they do not waste their energy on football, but motor into Paris for a bath and lunch.  At eight they leave the trenches along the Aisne and by noon arrive at Maxim’s, Voisin’s, or La Rue’s.  Seldom does warfare present a sharper contrast.  From a breakfast of “bully” beef, eaten from a tin plate, with in their nostrils the smell of camp-fires, dead horses, and unwashed bodies, they find themselves seated on red velvet cushions, surrounded by mirrors and walls of white and gold, and spread before them the most immaculate silver, linen, and glass.  And the odors that assail them are those of truffles, white wine, and “artechant sauce mousseline.”

It is a delight to hear them talk.  The point of view of the English is so sane and fair.  In risking their legs or arms, or life itself, they see nothing heroic, dramatic, or extraordinary.  They talk of the war as they would of a cricket-match or a day in the hunting-field.  If things are going wrong they do not whine or blame, nor when fortune smiles are they unduly jubilant.  And they are so appallingly honest and frank.  A piece of shrapnel had broken the arm of one of them, and we were helping him to cut up his food and pour out his Scotch and soda.  Instead of making a hero or a martyr of himself, he said confidingly:  “You know, I had no right to be hit.  If I had been minding my own business I wouldn’t have been hit.  But Jimmie was having a hell of a time on top of a hill, and I just ran up to have a look in.  And the beggars got me.  Served me jolly well right.  What?”

I met one subaltern at La Rue’s who had been given so many commissions by his brother officers to bring back tobacco, soap, and underclothes that all his money save five francs was gone.  He still had two days’ leave of absence, and, as he truly pointed out, in Paris even in war time five francs will not carry you far.  I offered to be his banker, but he said he would first try elsewhere.  The next day I met him on the boulevards and asked what kind of a riotous existence he found possible on five francs.

“I’ve had the most extraordinary luck,” he said.  “After I left you I met my brother.  He was just in from the front, and I got all his money.”

“Won’t your brother need it?” I asked.

“Not at all,” said the subaltern cheerfully.  “He’s shot in the legs, and they’ve put him to bed.  Rotten luck for him, you might say, but how lucky for me!”

Had he been the brother who was shot in both legs he would have treated the matter just as light-heartedly.