erge grumbling about
some petty grievance or carrying on a flirtation with another man's wife
or squabbling about sectarian dogmas or gambling on magazine
competitions or planning new businesses--in fact, behaving precisely as
the natural lord of creation always does behave. No member of our
hospital staff, I imagine, will ever forget the arrival of the first
batch of exchanged British wounded prisoners; It was the most tragic
scene I have ever witnessed. It is a fact, for which I make no apology,
that tears were shed by some of those whose task it was to welcome that
pitiful band of martyrs. We had received convoys of wounded many a time,
but _these_ broken creatures, so pale, so neglected, so thin and so
infinitely happy to be free once more, had a poignant appeal which must
have melted the most rigid official. (And we are neither very official,
here, nor very rigid.) Well, amongst these liberated captives was one
who told a sad tale of starvation at his internment camp. There is
little doubt that it was a true tale, in the main. On that I make no
comment. I simply introduce you to this gentleman, who had been restored
to his native land after ten months of entombment, in order to mention
that on the following morning, when his breakfast was placed before him,
he turned up his nose at it. Loudly complaining of the poorness of the
food, he leant out of bed, picked up a brown-paper parcel which had been
his only luggage, and produced from it some German salted herring, which
he proceeded to eat with grumbling gusto.

That is not specially Tommy Atkins; it is _homo sapiens_ of the
hearthside, whether in suburban villa or in slum, for ever dissatisfied
(more especially with his victuals) and for ever evoking our affection
all the same.

No; Tommy Atkins is never twice alike. He is unanimous on few debatable
matters. One of them, as I have said, is the desirability of finishing
the war--in the proper way. (But even here there are differences as to
what constitutes the proper way.) Another is (I trust I shall not shock
the reader) the extreme displeasingness of life at the front. I would
not say that our hospital patients are positively thankful to be
wounded, nor that they do not wish to recover with reasonable rapidity.
But that they are glad to be safe in England once more is undeniable.
The more honour to them that few, if any, flinch from returning to
duty--when they know only too well what that duty consists of. But