But after that what he wants maist is tae know that he’s no going to be helpless all his days.  He wants to feel that he’s some use in the world.  Unless he can feel sae, he’d raither ha’ stayed in a grave in France, alongside the thousands of others who have stayed there.  It’s an awfu’ thing to be a laddie, wi’ maist of the years of your life still before you to be lived, and to be thinking you micht better be dead.

I know what I’m talking aboot when I speak of this.  Mind ye, I’ve passed much time of late years in hospitals.  I’ve talked to these laddies when they’d be lying there, thinking—­thinking.  They’d a’ the time in the world to think after they began to get better.  And they’d be knowing, then, that they would live—­that the bullet or the shell or whatever it micht be that had dropped them had not finished them.  And they’d know, too, by then, that the limb was lost for aye, or the een or whatever it micht be.

Noo, think of a laddie coming hame.  He’s discharged frae the hospital and frae the army.  He’s a civilian again.  Say he’s blind.  He’s got his pension, his allowance, whatever it may be.  There’s his living.  But is he to be just a hulk, needing some one always to care for him?  That’s a’ very fine at first.  Everyone’s glad tae do it.  He’s a hero, and a romantic figure.  But let’s look a wee bit ahead.

Let’s get beyond Jock just at first, when all the folks are eager to see him and have him talk to them.  They’re glad to sit wi’ him, or tae tak’ him for a bit walk.  He’ll no bore them.  But let’s be thinking of Jock as he’ll be ten years frae noo.  Who’ll be remembering then hoo they felt when he first came home?  They’ll be thinking of the nuisance it is tae be caring for him a’ the time, and of the way he’s always aboot the hoose, needing care and attention.

What I’m afraid of is that tae many of the laddies wull be tae tired to fit themselves tae be other than helpless creatures, despite their wounds or their blindness.  They can do wonders, if we’ll help them.  We maun not encourage those laddies tae tak’ it tae easy the noo.  It’s a cruel hard thing to tell a boy like yon that he should be fitting himself for life.  It seems that he ought to rest a bit, and tak’ things easy, and that it’s a sma’ thing, after all he’s done, to promise him good and loving care all his days.

Aye, and that’s a sma’ thing enough—­if we’re sure we can keep our promise.  But after every war—­and any old timer can tell ye I’m tellin’ ye the truth the noo—­there have been crippled and blinded men who have relied upon such promises—­and seen them forgotten, seen themselves become a burden.  No man likes to think he’s a burden.  It irks him sair.  And it will be irksome specially tae laddies like those who have focht in France.

It’s no necessary that any man should do that.  The miracles of to-day are all at the service of the wounded laddies.  And I’ve seen things I’d no ha’ believed were possible, had I had to depend on the testimony o’ other eyes than my own.  I’ve seen men sae hurt that it didna seem possible they could ever do a’thing for themselves again.  And I’ve seen those same men fend for themselves in a way that was as astonishing as it was heart rending.