. What is to
be is to be, in war as elsewhere. Fatalism as regards one's own
prospects is inevitable; essential. But fatalism is an unsatisfying
creed; the word "Why?" is apt to creep into the back of a man's mind,
and the word "Why?" when the intelligence is low, is a dangerous one.
For the word "Why?" can only be satisfactorily answered by the
realisation of the bigness of the issue; by the knowledge that
individual effort is imperative if collective success is to be
obtained; by the absolute conviction that no man can be a law unto
himself. To the ten per cent. these facts were clear; but then, to the
ten per cent. the "Why?" was louder. The factor of their composition
which said to them "Why?"--clearly and insistently--even as they lay
motionless under their coats or outwardly wrangled for bacon and
tea--that very factor supplied the answer.

To the thinkers and dreamers there comes at such times the greater
knowledge: the knowledge which lifts them above self and the
trivialities of their own lives; the knowledge that is almost Divine.
They appreciate the futility--but they realise the necessity. And in
their hearts they laugh sardonically as the shadow of Dream's End
clouds the sky. The utter futility of it all--the utter necessity now
that futility has caught the world. Then they realise the bacon is
cold--and curse.

To the ninety per cent. it is not so. Not theirs to reason so acutely,
not theirs to care so much; to them the two dominant features of this
war--death and boredom--appeal with far less force. For both depend so
utterly on imagination in their effect on the individual. Death is
only awful in anticipation; boredom only an affliction to the
keen-witted. So to the ninety, perhaps, the "Why?" does not sound
insistently. It is as well, for if the answer is not forthcoming there
is danger, as I have said. And one wonders sometimes which class
produces the best results for the business in hand--the business of
slaughtering Huns. . . . The small one that rises to great heights and
sinks to great depths, or the big one, the plodders.

But I have digressed again. It is easy to wander into by-paths when
the main road is prosaic, and the study of a body of men before an
attack--the men who fear and don't show it, the men who fear and try
not to show it, the men who don't care a hang what happens--cannot but
grip the observer who has eyes to see. Almost does he forget his own
allotted part i