His flags commenced wagging, "Messages
received. Help coming." They didn't see him at first. He had to repeat
the words. We watched him breathlessly. We knew what would happen; at
last it happened. A Hun observer had spotted him and flashed the
target back to his guns. All about him the mud commenced to leap and
bubble. He went on signalling the good word to those stranded men up
front, "Messages received. Help coming." At last they'd seen him. They
were signaling, "O. K." It was at that moment that a whizz-bang lifted
him off his feet and landed him all of a huddle. _His "bit!"_ It was
what he'd volunteered to do, when he came from Canada. The signalled
"O. K." in the battlesmoke was like a testimony to his character.
That's the kind of peep at God we get on the Western Front. It isn't a
sad peep, either. When men die for something worth while death loses
all its terror. It's petering out in bed from sickness or old age
that's so horrifying. Many a man, whose cowardice is at loggerheads
with his sense of duty, comes to the Front as a non-combatant; he
compromises with his conscience and takes a bomb-proof job in some
service whose place is well behind the lines. He doesn't stop there
long, if he's a decent sort. Having learnt more than ever he guessed
before about the brutal things that shell-fire can do to you, he
transfers into a fighting unit. Why? Because danger doesn't appal; it
allures. It holds a challenge. It stings one's pride.
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