I suppose they are having a
great time, and all that sort of thing; but, don't you see, that's not
what I want! I mean business, Captain Pringle."

The Captain started from his chair, and took two or three turns up and
down the room.

"You are really anxious for active service?" he said presently.

"I am. I feel that I've waited too long, and I want to make up for
lost time. It's several weeks now since the war commenced, and
although, heaven knows, I thought I was doing the right thing, I feel
now as though I have been playing the sneak and the coward. Other
chaps have been fighting while I have been sitting in an arm-chair
theorising on the ethics of the business. Now, however, I see my duty,
and my way is clear. But I want to make up for lost time. I want to
be in the thick of it. Of course, if I can't, I can't, and, as I said,
I'm willing and anxious to do whatever I am told. But I _do_ want to
go to the front; I don't care in what capacity, but somewhere where I
can help to kill this Mad Mullah who is threatening the best life of
Europe."

"You want to help to smash Germany?" laughed the Captain.

"Yes, that's it!"

"But why?" asked the Captain curiously.

"Because Germany, that is, official Germany, the Germany that holds in
thraldom millions of people, is the spirit of war. It worships the God
of War, and I want to go to war in order to kill war. You can't argue
with it, you can't appeal to it, because what is right to you is simple
madness to them. There's nothing for it but to crush it, destroy it
root and branch."

"But what about your religious views?" laughed the Captain. "Don't you
still believe in prayer and in that kind of thing?"

"It's because I _do_ believe in it that I've been led to think as I do
think. But it would be mocking the Almighty to pray to be kept from
starvation when you refused to work; blasphemy to pray for good health
while your drains are foul; madness to pray that no robbers might enter
your house, when you left your doors unlocked, knowing that all the
time fellows were waiting to come in and rob you. Just the same it
would be mockery to pray that Germany may be kept from going to war,
when she believes that Christ encourages it, that it is her duty to
force war, and as a consequence has been for twenty years preparing for
it, and waiting for a favourable opportunity to begin her hellish work,
without doing all one can. We've got to crush, to kill this War