the fichting
thought or talked wi' one another. They'd no time, for the one thing.
And for another, I think they trusted us.

Weel, each government has worked out its own way of taking care of the
men who suffered. They're gude plans, the maist of them. Governments
have shown more intelligence, more sympathy, more good judgment, than
ever before in handling such matters. That's true in America as well
as in Britain. It's so devised that a helpless man will be taken care
of a' his life lang, and not feel that he's receiving any charity.
It's nae more than richt that it should be so; it would be a black
shame, indeed, if it were otherwise. But still there's more tae be
done, and it's for you and me and all the rest of us that didna suffer
sae to do it.

There's many things a laddie that's been sair wounded needs and wants
when he comes hame. Until he's sure of his food and his roof, and of
the care of those dependent on him, if such there be, he canna think
of anything else. And those things, as is richt and proper, his
country will take in its charge.

But after that what he wants maist is tae know that he's no going to
be helpless all his days. He wants to feel that he's some use in the
world. Unless he can feel sae, he'd raither ha' stayed in a grave in
France, alongside the thousands of others who have stayed there. It's
an awfu' thing to be a laddie, wi' maist of the years of your life
still before you to be lived, and to be thinking you micht better be
dead.

I know what I'm talking aboot when I speak of this. Mind ye, I've
passed much time of late years in hospitals. I've talked to these
laddies when they'd be lying there, thinking--thinking. They'd a' the
time in the world to think after they began to get better. And they'd
be knowing, then, that they would live--that the bullet or the shell
or whatever it micht be that had dropped them had not finished them.
And they'd know, too, by then, that the limb was lost for aye, or the
een or whatever it micht be.

Noo, think of a laddie coming hame. He's discharged frae the hospital
and frae the army. He's a civilian again. Say he's blind. He's got his
pension, his allowance, whatever it may be. There's his living. But is
he to be just a hulk, needing some one always to care for him? That's
a' very fine at first. Everyone's glad tae do it. He's a hero, and a
romantic figure. But let's look a wee bit ahead.

Let's get beyond Jock just at first, when all the folks