[Illustration: DOOR CHALKED BY THE GERMANS.
One of the 100 houses in Termonde with the direction "Do not Burn"
written in German. One thousand one hundred houses were burned, house by
house. Photograph by Radclyffe Dugmore.]
In that second of tension, it was a pleasant thing to draw in on a
butt--to discharge the smoke, a second later, carelessly, as who should
say, "It is nothing." The little cylinder was a lightning conductor to
lead away the danger from a vital part. It let the nervousness leak off
into biting and puffing, and making a play of fingering the stub,
instead of striking into the stomach and the courage. It gave the
troubled face something to do, and let the writhing hand busy itself. It
saved me from knowing just how frightened I was.
But what of the wounded themselves? They have to endure all that
dreariness of long waiting, and the pressure of danger, and then, for
good measure, a burden of pain. So I come to the men who are revealing
human nature at a higher pitch than any others in the war. The
trench-digging, elderly chaps are patient and long-enduring, and the
fighting men are as gallant as any the ballad-mongers used to rime
about.
But it is of the wounded that one would like to speak in a way to win
respect for them rather than pity. I think some American observers have
missed the truth about the wounded. They have told of the groaning and
screaming, the heavy smells, the delays and neglect.
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