er the first baptism of fire any lingering fear is
dispelled. "I don't think we were ever afraid at all," says another
soldier, "but we got into action so quickly that we hadn't time to think
about it." "Habit soon overcomes the first instinctive fear," writes a
third, "and then the struggle is always palpitating."

Of course, the fighting affects men in different ways. Some see the
ugliness, the horror of it all, grow sick at the sight, and suffer from
nausea. Others, seeing deeper significance in this desolation of life,
realize the wickedness and waste of it; as one Highlander expresses it:
"Being out there, and seeing what we see, makes us feel religious." But
the majority of the men have the instinct for fighting, quickly adapt
themselves to war conditions, and enter with zest into the joy of
battle. These happy warriors are the men who laugh, and sing, and jest
in the trenches. They take a strangely intimate pleasure in the danger
around them, and when they fall they die like Mr. Julian Smith of the
Intelligence Department, declaring that they "loved the fighting." All
the wounded beg the doctors and nurses to hurry up and let them return
to the front. "I was enjoying it until I was put under," writes
Lance-Corporal Leslie, R.E. "I must get back and have another go at
them," says Private J. Roe, of the Manchesters. And so on, letter after
letter expressing impatience to get into the firing line.

The artillery is what harasses the men most. They soon developed a
contempt for German rifle fire, and it became a very persistent joke in
the trenches. But nearly all agree that German artillery is "hell let
loose." That is what the enemy intended it to be, but they did not
reckon upon the terrors of Hades making so small an impression upon the
British soldier. There is an illuminating passage in an official
statement issued from the General Headquarters:

"The object of the great proportion of artillery the Germans employ is
to beat down the resistance of their enemy by a concentrated and
prolonged fire, and to shatter their nerve with high explosives before
the infantry attack is launched. They seem to have relied on doing this
with us; but they have not done so, though it has taken them several
costly experiments to discover this fact. From the statements of
prisoners, indeed, it appears that they have been greatly disappointed
by the moral effect produced by their heavy guns, which, despite the
actual losses inflic