You don't much
care, so long as you've completed your job. "We're well away," you
laugh to the chap next you. The show has commenced.
When you have given people every reason you can think of which
explains the spirit of our men, they still shake their heads in a
bewildered manner, murmuring, "I don't know how you stand it." I'm
going to make one last attempt at explanation.
We stick it out by believing that we're in the right--to believe
you're in the right makes a lot of difference. You glance across No
Man's Land and say, "Those blighters are wrong; I'm right." If you
believe that with all the strength of your soul and mind, you can
stand anything. To allow yourself to be beaten would be to own that
you weren't.
To still hold that you're right in the face of armed assertions from
the Hun that you're wrong, requires pride in your regiment, your
division, your corps and, most of all, in your own integrity. No one
who has not worn a uniform can understand what pride in a regiment can
do for a man. For instance, in France every man wears his divisional
patch, which marks him. He's jolly proud of his division and wouldn't
consciously do anything to let it down. If he hears anything said to
its credit, he treasures the saying up; it's as if he himself had been
mentioned in despatches. It was rumoured this year that the night
before an attack, a certain Imperial General called his battalion
commanders together. When they were assembled, he said, "Gentlemen, I
have called you together to tell you that tomorrow morning you will be
confronted by one of the most difficult tasks that has ever been
allotted to you; you will have to measure up to the traditions of the
division on our left--the First Canadian Division, which is in my
opinion the finest fighting division in France.
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