JIM.  I knowed a bloke onest in civil life wot died a lingerin’ death.  Lived in the second-floor back in the same ‘ouse as me an’ my missus, ‘e did.  Suffered somefink’ ’orrible, ‘e did, an’ lingered more nor five year.  Yet I reckon ‘e was one o’ the best blokes as ever I come acrost.  Went to ’eaven straight, ’e did, if ever any one did.  Wasn’t ’alf glad ter go, neither.  “I done my bit of ’ell, Jim,” ’e sez to me, an’ looked that ‘appy you’d a’ thought as ’e was well agin.  Shan’t never forget ‘is face, I shan’t.  An’ I’d sooner be that bloke, for all ’is sufferin’s, than I’d be old Fred ‘ere, an’ live to a ’undred.

BILL (philosophically).  You’m right, matey.  This is a wale o’ tears, as the ’ymn sez, and them as is out on it is best off, if so be as they done their dooty in that state o’ life....  Where’s the corfee, Jim?  The water’s on the bile.

VII

THE FEAR OF DEATH IN WAR

I am not a psychologist, and I have not seen many people die in their beds; but I think it is established that very few people are afraid of a natural death when it comes to the test.  Often they are so weak that they are incapable of emotion.  Sometimes they are in such physical pain that death seems a welcome deliverer.

But a violent death such as death in battle is obviously a different matter.  It comes to a man when he is in the full possession of his health and vigour, and when every physical instinct is urging him to self-preservation.  If a man feared death in such circumstances one could not be surprised, and yet in the present war hundreds of thousands of men have gone to meet practically certain destruction without giving a sign of terror.

The fact is that at the moment of a charge men are in an absolutely abnormal condition.

I do not know how to describe their condition in scientific terms; but there is a sensation of tense excitement combined with a sort of uncanny calm.  Their emotions seem to be numbed.  Noises, sights, and sensations which would ordinarily produce intense pity, horror, or dread, have no effect on them at all, and yet never was their mind clearer, their sight, hearing, etc., more acute.  They notice all sorts of little details which would ordinarily pass them by, but which now thrust themselves on their attention with absurd definiteness—­absurd because so utterly incongruous and meaningless.  Or they suddenly remember with extraordinary clearness some trivial incident of their past life, hitherto unremembered, and not a bit worth remembering!  But with the issue before them, with victory or death or the prospect of eternity, their minds blankly refuse to come to grips.