have met and associated and talked
with them on equal terms. Under fire and in action I have watched them,
have sat with them, long afternoons by rivers and under trees, and
yarned with them on tramps in the blazing sun. Their language, habits,
and character have to some extent grown familiar to me.

They are not, to begin with, a bit like the description I sometimes read
of them in newspapers. In one of Kipling's books there is a description
of a painting of a soldier in action; realistic and true to life; dirty
and grimed and foul, with an assegai wound across the ankle, and the
terror of death in his face. The dealer who took the picture made the
artist alter it; had the uniform cleaned and the straps pipe-clayed, and
the face smoothed and composed, and the ferocity and despair toned down
to a plump and well-fed complacency, and made, in fact, all those
alterations which were supposed to suit it to the public taste.

The newspapers describe the British soldier, I suppose, to suit the
public too, much on the same lines. He is the most simpering,
mild-mannered, and perfect gentleman. If you asked him to loot a farm,
he would stare at you in shocked amazement. He is, of course, "as brave
as a lion," his courage being always at that dead level of perfect
heroism which makes the term quite meaningless. Except, however, when
they are shining with the light of battle, his eyes regard all people,
friends and foes alike, with an expression of kindness and brotherly
love. He never uses a strong word, and under all circumstances the
gentleness and sweet decorum of his manner is such as you would never
expect to meet outside the Y.M.C.A.

This is about as much like our dear, old, real Tommy Atkins as Kipling's
portrait was. Such a likeness does no honour to the man. It is simply
lifeless. Whatever Tommy is, he is a man; not a round-eyed, pink-cheeked
waxwork stuffed with bran. The truth is coarse and strong, but he can
stand having the truth told about him.

Soldiers as a class (I take the town-bred, slum-bred majority, mind) are
men who have discarded the civil standard of morality altogether. They
simply ignore it. This, no doubt, is why civilians fight shy of them. In
the game of life they don't play the same rules, and the consequence is
a good deal of misunderstanding, until finally the civilian says he
won't play with the Tommy any more. In soldiers' eyes lying, theft,
drunkenness, bad language, &c., are not evils at a