Then followed some remarks of Peter’s on courage, which came to me in that London room as if spoken by his living voice.  I have never known anyone so brave, so brave by instinct, or anyone who hated so much to be told so.  It was almost the only thing that could make him angry.  All his life he had been facing death, and to take risks seemed to him as natural as to get up in the morning and eat his breakfast.  But he had started out to consider the very thing which before he had taken for granted, and here is an extract from his conclusions.  I paraphrase him, for he was not grammatical.

It’s easy enough to be brave if you’re feeling well and have food inside you.  And it’s not so difficult even if you’re short of a meal and seedy, for that makes you inclined to gamble.  I mean by being brave playing the game by the right rules without letting it worry you that you may very likely get knocked on the head.  It’s the wisest way to save your skin.  It doesn’t do to think about death if you’re facing a charging lion or trying to bluff a lot of savages.  If you think about it you’ll get it; if you don’t, the odds are you won’t.  That kind of courage is only good nerves and experience . . .  Most courage is experience.  Most people are a little scared at new things . . .

You want a bigger heart to face danger which you go out to look for, and which doesn’t come to you in the ordinary way of business.  Still, that’s pretty much the same thing—­good nerves and good health, and a natural liking for rows.  You see, Dick, in all that game there’s a lot of fun.  There’s excitement and the fun of using your wits and skill, and you know that the bad bits can’t last long.  When Arcoll sent me to Makapan’s kraal I didn’t altogether fancy the job, but at the worst it was three parts sport, and I got so excited that I never thought of the risk till it was over . . .

But the big courage is the cold-blooded kind, the kind that never lets go even when you’re feeling empty inside, and your blood’s thin, and there’s no kind of fun or profit to be had, and the trouble’s not over in an hour or two but lasts for months and years.  One of the men here was speaking about that kind, and he called it ‘Fortitude’.  I reckon fortitude’s the biggest thing a man can have—­just to go on enduring when there’s no guts or heart left in you.  Billy had it when he trekked solitary from Garungoze to the Limpopo with fever and a broken arm just to show the Portugooses that he wouldn’t be downed by them.  But the head man at the job was the Apostle Paul . . .

Peter was writing for his own comfort, for fortitude was all that was left to him now.  But his words came pretty straight to me, and I read them again and again, for I needed the lesson.  Here was I losing heart just because I had failed in the first round and my pride had taken a knock.  I felt honestly ashamed of myself, and that made me a far happier man.  There could be no question of dropping