was sunk in the one
thought that they were there for France. The fellowship of a cause
taught them patience, brought them cheer. Another thing was the
increasing sense of team play, of confidence in victory, which holds a
ball team, a business enterprise, or an army together. Every day the
organization of the army was improving; every day that indescribable
and subtle element of satisfaction that the Germans were securely
held was growing.

Every Frenchman saves something of his income; madame sees to it
that he does. He knows that if he dies he will not leave wife and
children penniless. His son, not yet old enough to fight, will come on
to take his place. Men at home of twenty-two or three years and
unmarried, men of twenty-eight or thirty years and not long married,
and men of forty with some money put by, will, in turn, understand
how their own class feels.

In ten minutes you had entered into the hearts of this single company
in a way that made you feel that you had got into the heart of the
whole French army. When you asked them if they would like to go
home they didn't say "No!" all in a chorus, as if that were what the
colonel had told them to say. They obey the colonel, but their
thoughts are their own. Otherwise, these ruddy, healthy men,
representing the people of France and not the cafes of Paris, would
not keep France a republic.

Yes, they did want to go home. They did want to go home. They
wanted their wives and babies; they wanted to sit down to morning
coffee at their own tables. Lumps rose in their throats at the
suggestion. But they were not going until the German peril was over
for ever. Why stop now, only to have another terrible war in thirty or
forty years? A peace that would endure must be won. They had
thought that out for themselves. They would not stick to their
determination if they had not. This is the way of democracies. Thus,
everyone was conscious that he was fighting not merely to win, but
for future generations.

"It happened that this great struggle which we had long feared came
in our day, and to us is the duty," said one. You caught the spirit of
comradeship passing the time with jests at one another's expense.
One of the men who was not a full thirty-third-degree poilu had
compromised with the razor on a moustache as blazing red as his
shock of hair.

"I think that the colonel gave him the tip that he would light the way for
Zeppelins!" said a comrade.

"Envy! Sheer envy!