h could by
any stretch of the imagination be described as a comfort is whale-oil,
carried in great jars, with which they rub their feet several times
daily in order to prevent "trench feet." If you want to get a real
idea of what the British infantryman has to endure during at least six
months of the year, I would suggest that you strap on a pack-basket
with a load of forty-two pounds, which is the weight of the British
field equipment, tramp for ten hours through a ploughed field after a
heavy rain, jump in a canal, and, without removing your clothes or
boots, spend the night on a manure-pile in a barnyard. Then you will
understand why soldiers become so heedless of gas, bullets, and
shells. But with it all the British soldier remains incorrigibly
cheerful. He is a born optimist and he shows it in his songs. Away
back in the early months of the war he went into action to the lilt of
"_Tipperary_." The gloom and depression of that first terrible winter
induced in him a more serious mood, to which he gave vent in "_Onward,
Christian Soldiers_." But now he feels that victory, though still far
off, is certain, and he puts his confidence into words: "_Pack Up Your
Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile_," "_Keep the
Home Fires Burning_," "_When Irish Eyes Are Smiling_," and
"_Hallelujah! I'm a Hobo!_" The latter very popular. Then there was
another, adapted by the Salvation Army from an old music-hall tune,
which I heard a battalion chanting lustily as it went slush-slushing
up to the firing-line. It ran something like this:

"The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
For you but not for me.
For me the angels sing-a-ling-a-ling,
They've got the goods for me.
O Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling,
O Grave thy victoree?
The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
For you but not for me!"

It is almost impossible to make oneself believe that, less than two
years ago, these iron-hard, sun-bronzed, determined-looking men were
keeping books, tending shop, waiting on table, driving wagons, and
doing all the other humdrum things which make up the working lives of
most of us. Yet this citizen army is winning sensational successes
against the best trained troops in the world, occupying positions of
their own choosing, fortified and defended with every device that
human ingenuity and years of experience have been able to suggest.
These ex-shopkeepers, ex-tailors, ex-lawyers, ex-farmers,