When there is real fighting to be done the dangers of the after-reaction are intensified.  You who sit at home and read of glorious bayonet charges do not realize what it means to the man behind the bayonet.  You don’t realize the repugnance for the first thrust—­a repugnance which has got to be overcome.  You don’t realize the change that comes over a man when his bayonet is wet with the blood of his first enemy.  He “sees red.”  The primitive “blood-lust,” kept under all his life by the laws and principles of peaceful society, surges through his being, transforming him, maddening him with the desire to kill, kill, kill!  Ask any one who has been through it if this is not true.  And that letting loose of a primitive lust is not going to be without its effect on a man’s character.

At the same time, of course, not all of us become animals out here.  There are other influences at work.  Caring for the wounded, burying the mutilated dead, cause one to hate war, and to value ten times more the ways of peace.  Many are saved from sinking in the scale, by a love of home which is able to bridge the gulf which separates them from their beloved.  The letters of my platoon are largely love letters—­often the love letters of married men to their wives.

There is immorality in the Army; when there is opportunity immorality is rife.  Possibly there is more abroad than there is at home.  If so it is because there is far greater temptation.  Nevertheless, I fancy that my correspondent, who is a padre, a don, and at least the beginning of a saint, is perhaps inclined to exaggerate the extent of the evil in the Army as compared with civil life.  I imagine that very few padres, especially if they are dons, and most of all if they are saints, realize that in civil life as in Army life, the average man is immoral, both in thought and deed.  Let us be frank about this.  What a doctor might call the “appetites” and a padre the “lusts” of the body, hold dominion over the average man, whether civilian or soldier, unless they are counteracted by a stronger power.  The only men who are pure are those who are absorbed in some pursuit, or possessed by a great love; be it the love of clean, wholesome life which is religion, or the love of a noble man which is hero-worship, or the love of a true woman.  These are the four powers which are stronger than “the flesh”—­the zest of a quest, religion, hero-worship, and the love of a good woman.  If a man is not possessed by one of these he will be immoral.

Probably most men are immoral.  The conditions of military, and especially of active service merely intensify the temptation.  Unless a soldier is wholly devoted to the cause, or powerfully affected by religion, or by hero-worship, or by pure love, he is immoral.