A love
that has been proved many times, when the commissioned man has sacrificed
his life to save the man of lower rank; when the private has crossed the
pathway of hell itself to save a fallen leader.
The English soldier, and when I say English I mean to include Welsh, Scotch
and Irish, reserves to himself the right to "grouse." He grouses at
everything great or small which has no immediate or vital bearing on the
situation. As soon as anything arises that would really warrant a
grouse--napoo! Tommy Atkins then begins to smile. He grouses when he has to
clean his buttons; he grouses loudly and fiercely when a puttee frays to
rags, and he grouses when his tea is too hot.
But when Tommy runs out of ammunition, is partly surrounded by the enemy,
is almost paralyzed by bombardment; when he is literally in the last ditch,
with a strip of cold steel the only thing between him and death--then
Tommy smiles, then he cracks a joke. Without a thought of himself, without
a murmur, he faces any desperate plight.
He smiles as he rattles his last bullet into place; he grins as his bayonet
snaps from the hilt, and he goes to it hand-to-hand with doubled fists, a
tag of a song on his lips, for "Death or Glory.
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