s from home because they had seen their mail wagon
burn on the battlefield; and how one of them was only twenty, and had
been six years in the army,--lied when he enlisted; how none of them had
ever seen war before; how they had always wanted to, and "Now," said the
twenty-years older, "I've seen it--good Lord--and all I want is to get
home," and he drew out of his breast pocket a photograph of a young girl
in all her best clothes, sitting up very straight.

When I said, "Best girl?" he said proudly, "Only one, and we were to
have been married in January if this hadn't happened. Perhaps we may
yet, if we get home at Christmas, as they tell us we may."

I wondered who he meant by "they." The officers did not give any such
impression.

While I was gathering up towels and things before returning to the
house, this youngster advanced toward me, and said with a half-shy
smile, "I take it you're a lady."

I said I was glad he had noticed it--I did make such an effort.

"No, no," he said, "I'm not joking. I may not say it very well, but I
am quite serious. We all want to say to you that if it is war that
makes you and the women you live amongst so different from English
women, then all we can say is that the sooner England is invaded and
knows what it means to have a fighting army on her soil, and see her
fields devastated and her homes destroyed, the better it will be for the
race. You take my word for it, they have no notion of what war is like;
and there ain't no English woman of your class could have, or would
have, done for us what you have done this morning. Why, in England the
common soldier is the dirt under the feet of women like you."

I had to laugh, as I told him to wait and see how they treated them when
war was there; that they probably had not done the thing simply because
they never had had the chance.

"Well," he answered, "they'll have to change mightily. Why, our own
women would have been uncomfortable and ashamed to see a lot of dirty
men stripping and washing down like we have done. You haven't looked as
if you minded it a bit, or thought of anything but getting us cleaned up
as quick and comfortable as possible."

I started to say that I felt terribly flattered that I had played the
role so well, but I knew he would not understand. Besides, I was
wondering if it were true. I never knew the English except as
individuals, never as a race. So I only laughed, picked up my towels,
and went ho