Some of the earliest letters from the soldiers present distressing pictures of the poor, driven refugees, fleeing from their homes at the approach of the Germans, who carry ruin and desolation wherever they go.  “It is pitiful, pitiful,” says one writer; “you simply can’t hold back your tears.”  Others disclose our sympathetic soldier-men sharing their rations with the starving fugitives and carrying the children on their shoulders so that the weary mothers may not fall by the way.  “Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind” were Lord Kitchener’s words to the Army, and these qualities no less than valor will always be linked with Tommy Atkins’ name in the memories of the French and Belgian people.

They will never forget the happy spick-and-span soldiers who sang as they stepped ashore from the troopships at Boulogne and Havre, eager to reach the fighting line.  These men have fought valiantly, desperately, since then, but their spirits are as high as ever, and their songs still ring down the depleted ranks as the war-stained regiments swing along from battle to battle on the dusty road to Victory.

II

SENSATIONS UNDER FIRE

It is said of Sir John French that, on his own admission, he has “never done anything worth doing without having to screw himself up to it.”  There is no hint here of practical fear, which the hardened soldier, the fighting man, rarely experiences; but of the moral and mental conflict which precedes the assumption of sovereign duties and high commands.  Every man who goes into battle has this need.  He requires the moral preparation of knowing why he is fighting, and what he is fighting for.  In the present war, Lord Kitchener’s fine message to every soldier in the Expeditionary Force made this screwing-up process easy.  But to men going under fire for the first time some personal preparation is also necessary to combat the ordinary physical terror of the battlefield.

Soldiers are not accustomed to self-analysis.  They are mainly men of action, and are supposed to lack the contemplative vision.  That was the old belief.  This war, however, which has shattered so many accepted ideas, has destroyed that conviction too.  Nothing is more surprising than the revelation of their feelings disclosed in the soldiers’ letters.  They are the most intimate of human documents.  Here and there a hint is given of the apprehension with which the men go into action, unspoken fears of how they will behave under fire, the uncertainty of complete mastery over themselves, brief doubts of their ability to stand up to this new and sublime ordeal of death.

Rarely, however, do the men allow these apprehensions to depress or disturb them.  Throughout the earliest letters from the front the one pervading desire was eagerness for battle—­a wild impatience to get the first great test of their courage over, to feel their feet, obtain command of themselves.