soldiers.
Not neat and well-appointed soldiers these. Ah, no! They were fresh
from the trenches, on their way back to rest. The mud and grime of
the trenches were upon them. They were tired and weary, and they
carried all their accoutrements and packs with them. Their boots were
heavy with mud. And they looked bad, and many of them shaky. Most of
these men, Godfrey told me after a glance at them, had been ordered
back to hospital for minor ailments. They were able to march, but not
much more.

They were the first men I had seen in such a case, They looked bad
enough, but Godfrey said they were happy enough. Some of them would
get leave for Blighty, and be home, in a few days, to see their
families and their girls. And they came swinging along in fine style,
sick and tired as they were, for the thought of where they were going
cheered them and helped to keep them going.

A British soldier, equipped for the trenches, on his way in or out,
has quite a load to carry. He has his pack, and his emergency ration,
and his entrenching tools, and extra clothing that he needs in bad
weather in the trenches, to say nothing of his ever-present rifle.
And the sight of them made me realize for the first time the truth
that lay behind the jest in a story that is one of Tommy's favorites.

A child saw a soldier in heavy marching order. She gazed at him in
wide-eyed wonder. He was not her idea of what a soldier should look
like.

"Mother," she asked, "what is a soldier for?"

The mother gazed at the man. And then she smiled.

"A soldier," she answered, "is to hang things on."

They eyed me very curiously as they came along, those sick laddies.
They couldn't seem to understand what I was doing there, but their
discipline held them. They were in charge of a young lieutenant with
one star--a second lieutenant. I learned later that he was a long way
from being a well man himself. So I stopped him. "Would your men like
to hear a few songs, lieutenant?" I asked him.

He hesitated. He didn't quite understand, and he wasn't a bit sure
what his duty was in the circumstances. He glanced at Godfrey, and
Godfrey smiled at him as if in encouragement.

"It's very good of you, I'm sure," he said, slowly. "Fall out!"

So the men fell out, and squatted there, along the wayside. At once
discipline was relaxed. Their faces were a study as the wee piano was
set up again, and Johnson, in uniform, of course sat down and trued a
chord or two. And