that we should speak out, we find ourselves inarticulate. Not wise, perhaps, and yet rather splendid, this cheerful reticence of the British soldier! To whomsoever else he is a hero, he is no hero to himself. He would rather be taken at his Piccadilly worth. He does nothing by his speech to help people at home to realise the hell he has lived through. When he comes on leave and is asked what kind of a time he has had, “Oh, a ripping time,” he says, “it’s a nice little war. Couldn’t do without it.”
Examples of this national characteristic are not far to seek. Other nations before an attack spur their troops to keener patriotism by recalling former glories and present injustices. Our Army Orders are to the point; they contain no bugle-calls. “On April the —th the Canadian Corps will capture Vimy Ridge,” ran the Army Order for one of the most important of the spring offensives; it can scarcely be beaten for brevity. Our Tommies are equally matter of fact. They go over the top to meet wounds and death, shouting, “This way for the early doors.” While a new patriotic poetry is being born in the trenches of the French, the songs composed by our battalions are burlesques on their own bravery. The solitary art-contributions we have to place beside the moral indignation of a Raemaekers are Captain Bairnsfather’s comic portrayals of Old Bill. Our pose of light-heartedness has succeeded too well; we have almost persuaded the world that we are incredible
