The German infantryman is tough, but not tougher than ours, and without the dash; his outstanding virtue is his great power of work.  But I do not believe from what I have seen that he works one scrap harder than the Australian.  He might be supposed to have his heart more in the war than the soldier of any other nation, but he certainly has not.  Many German soldiers have told me that there was a universal longing for the war to end—­but they seem to wonder at your asking them what they think, or what their people in Germany think—­as though it mattered one straw.  They tell you, in a detached sort of way, that a great many of their people in Germany are tired of the war.  “But they have no influence on these matters,” they say, “nor have the soldiers.  We do not meet together—­we have nothing to say with it.  They would go on with the war all next year even if a million more men are killed—­they will bring back all the wounded, and the sick, if necessary.”

The German who used those words seemed to have no quarrel with those who were driving his country, and no pride in them—­he did not approve and he did not disapprove.  He seemed to accept them as part of the unquestioned, unchangeable laws of his existence; they were there—­and what business was it of his to interfere with them?

One can scarcely see a gleam of hope for them in the attitude of their prisoners—­a people that cannot rebel.  But perhaps it is unfair to judge.

For these men, whom we now see, have been at long, long last through the fire of guns heavier than their own; and through the mud of Le Barque.

CHAPTER XXXII

THE NEW DRAFT

France, December 11th.

A fair-sized shell recently arrived in a certain front trench held by Australians in France.  It exploded, and an Australian found himself struggling amongst some debris in No Man’s Land.  He tried to haul himself clear, but the tumbled rubbish kept him down; and, as often as he was seen to move, bullets whizzed past him from a green slope near by.  The green slope ran like a low railway embankment along the other side of the unkempt paddock between the trenches.  It was the German front line.

Finally one of his mates, I am told, jumped over to his help and dragged him clear.  When he got in he asked to be put into the very next party that should visit the German trenches.  He wanted his own back.

He was one of the newest Australians.  That is exactly the sort of request that would have been made by the oldest ones.

We have seen the newest Australian draft in France, and the verdict from first to last amongst those who know them is, “They will do.”  There is always a certain amount of chaff thrown out by the oldest Australians at the latest arrivals.  The sort of Australian who used to talk about our “tinpot navy” labelled the Australians who rushed at the chance of adventure the moment the