Imperturbable under danger; certain of his own immediate immunity from death; confident of his regiment’s invincibility; with a deep-rooted love of home and an unalterable belief in the might and right of Britain—­there is Tommy Atkins.

Looking back from the vantage point of nearly two years, it seems to me that we were somewhat like young unbroken colts.  We were restless and untrained, with an overplus of spirits difficult to control.  Gradually the English Tommy influenced us until we gained much of his steadiness of purpose, his bulldog tenacity and his insouciance.

Tommy never instructed us by word of mouth.  He lived his creed in his daily rounds.  He never knows that he is beaten, therefore a beating is never his.  We have gained the same outlook, simply by association with him.

Were I a general and had I a position to take, I would choose soldiers of one nation as quickly as another—­French, Australians, Africans, Indians, Americans or Canadians.  Were I a general and had I a position to retain, to hold against all odds, then, without a moment’s hesitation, I would send English troops and English troops only.

Now and again an American or a Canadian newspaper would come our way.  “Anything to read” is a never-ending cry at the front, and every scrap of newspaper is read, discussed and read again.  In the early days of 1914-15, these newspapers would have long and weighty editorials which called forth longer and weightier letters from “veritas” and “old subscriber.”  We boys read those editorials and letters, and wondered; wondered how sane men could waste time in writing such stuff, how sane men could set it in type and print it, and more than all we wondered how sane men could read it.  “Who started the war?” they asked.

“Bah!” we would say to one another, “who started the war?  If only those folks who write and print and read such piffle, no matter what their nationality, could have had five minutes’ look at the German trenches and another five minutes’ look at the French and British trenches—­never again would they query, ‘Who started the war?’”

We of the Allied army knew nothing of trench warfare.  After the fierce onslaught on Paris, which failed, the Germans entrenched.  Thank God, they did.  They entrenched, and by entrenching they have won the war for us.  They made a mistake then that they can never now retrieve.

They were in a position to choose, and they chose to entrench in the high dry sections, leaving the low-lying swamps, the damp marshy lands, for us.  We had no alternative.  It was either to take a stand there on what footing was left or be wiped off the map.  We stood.

On that sector between La Bassee and Armentieres it was practically an impossibility to dig in.  The muddy water was of inconceivable thickness along the greater length of the whole front.  It oused and eddied, it seemed to swirl and draw as though there were a tide.  We did not attempt to dig.  We raised sandbag breastworks some five or six feet high and lay behind them day in and day out for an eternity, as it seemed.