The parcels from W——'s arrived all safe and sound, thanks to your careful arrangements, and we are, in consequence, living in the lap of luxury. The tinned fruit is specially appreciated, and very good for us, I've no doubt. By the way, you will be glad to know that the boiler-maker's suit in one piece of water-proofed canvas is a huge success. I wore it on that last bombing raid. For patrol work, or wiring, for anything over the parapet, and in the trench, too, at night-time, for instance, I don't think there's anything to beat it. There's nothing to catch or get in one's way, and it's a great joy to keep one's ordinary clothes clean and decent. On patrol it's better than oilskin, because it's silent—doesn't rustle.

I dare say you've heard that phrase—I forget whose it is—about the backbone of the Army being the non-commissioned man. I suspect it was all right when it was written, and goodness knows, there's not much the matter with the non-commissioned man to-day. Only, there isn't the difference that there was between the N.C.O. and the "other ranks"—the men. The N.C.O. isn't the separate type he was, because the N.C.O. of to-day is so often the man of yesterday; promotion having necessarily been rapid in the New Army. We had to make our own N.C.O.'s from the start. They're all backbone, now, men and N.C.O.'s alike. And the officers are quite all right, thank you, too. I doubt whether officers in any Army have ever worked harder than the officers of our New Army—the "Temporary Gentlemen," you know—are working to-day. They have had to work hard. Couldn't leave it to N.C.O.'s, you see, because, apart from anything else, they've had to make the N.C.O.'s out of privates; teach 'em their job. So we're all backbone together.

And when you hear some fellow saying "The men are splendid," you need not think he's just paying a conventional tribute or echoing a stereotyped kind of praise. It's true; "true as death," as Harry Lauder used to sing; it's as true as anything I know. It's Gospel truth. The men are absolutely and all the time splendid.

I'm not an emotional sort of a chap, and I'm sure before the war I never gave a thought to such things; but, really, there is something incurably and ineradicably fine about the rough average Englishman, who has no surface graces at all. You know the kind I mean. The decency of him is something in his grain. It stands any test you like to apply. It's the same colour all the way through. I'm not emotional; but I don't mind telling you, strictly between ourselves, that since I've been out here in trenches I've had the water forced into my eyes, not once, but a dozen times, from sheer admiration and respect, by the action of rough, rude chaps whom you'd never waste a second glance on in the streets of London; men who, so far from being exceptional, are typical through and through; just the common, low-down street average.

That's the rough, rude, foul-mouthed kind, with no manners at all, and many ways that you hate. But I tell you, under the strain and stress of this savage existence he shows up for what he really is, under his rough, ugly hide: he's jewel all through without an ounce of dirty Boche meanness or cruelty in his whole carcass. You may hate his manners if you like but you can't help loving him; you simply can't help it if you work alongside of him in the trenches in face of the enemy.

And that's not the only type we've got that makes you want to take your hat off to Tommy, and that puts a real respect, which perhaps the civilian doesn't understand, into your salutes. (It's only silly puppy boys, or officers who've never been in the presence of an enemy, or faced immediate danger with men, who can't be bothered properly and fully acknowledging salutes. You watch a senior, one who's learned his lessons in real service, and you'll find nothing grudging or casual or half-hearted. We get into the French way here, with a hint of the bow, a real salutation in our salutes.) Even more striking, I sometimes think, is the sterling stuff we find in types of men in the ranks who haven't naturally anything rough or hard about them: like my ex-draper chap, you know, in No. 3 Platoon, Ramsay. We've a number of the same calibre. He was a pillar of his chapel at home and—of all things—a draper: a gentle, soft-spoken dealer in ribbons and tape. I told you, I think, how he fought with a man in his section when he fancied he was not going to be allowed to go out one night with a bombing party.

You read about calling for volunteers. With our lot it's hopeless to call for volunteers for a dangerous job. The only thing to do would be to call for volunteers to stay behind. The other thing's simply a way of calling out the whole Company; and if it happens to be just half a dozen you want, that's awkward.

Then there's the matter of grousing—growling among themselves about this and that. You would be deceived about this until you got to know them a bit. It's a queer thing, and not easy to explain, but grousing is one of the passions of their lives, or, perhaps it would be truer to say, a favourite form of recreation. But, mark you this, only when everything is going smoothly, and there is nothing real to grumble about. It would seem to be absolutely forbidden to growl when there's anything to growl about; a sort of unwritten law which, since we've been out here, anyhow, is never transgressed.

It's rather fine, this, you know, and very English. So long as there's a little intermittent grousing going on you can be quite sure of two things—that there's nothing wrong and that the men are in good spirits and content. If there's no grousing, it means one of two things—either that the men are angered about something, in which case they will be unusually silent, or that we are up against real difficulties and hardships involving real suffering, in which case there will be a lot of chaffing and joke-cracking and apparent merriment.

Queer, isn't it? But I think it's a true description. If a long day's hard labour—clearing out a trench and building up a parapet, we'll say—is undone and washed out just as it's finished by a succession of Boche oil-cans, mortars, and general bombardment, which also lays out a few good men, and blows the next meal rations sky-high, so that there's the prospect of a long night's extra hard work where some rest had been expected, and all on an empty stomach—then you'll hear no grousing at all, but any number of jocular remarks:

"I tell you, the Army of to-day's all right!" "We don't get much pay, but, my word, we do see life!" "Save me a lot o' trouble, this will. My fightin' weight was goin' up a lot too fast, but this'll save me givin' up my port wine an' turtle soup!" Then some wag pretends to consult his newspaper, and, looking up, announces that: "On the remainder of the Front the night was comparatively quiet." "Yes," says another, quoting further from the imaginary news, "and the banquet which had been arranged for 'A' Company was pos'poned till the following day." "When it is hoped," adds yet another joker, "that a number of prominent Boche prisoners will attend." Elaborate winks and nods; and one man positively licks his lips as he mutters: "Gosh! If only they really would come over the sticks to-night; if only they would!" "Reg'ler bloomin' pacifist, isn't he?" remarks a student of the Press, "longin' to welcome the gentle Hun with open arms, he is—not 'arf!" "We'll welcome him all right, if only the beggar 'd come. I'd like to use a section or two of 'em for buildin' up this bloomin' parapet. Be stiffer than these sand-bags full o' slush." "Shame! An' you a yewmanitarian, too. Why, how'd our poor chaps ever be able to stand the smell of all them potted Huns, an' so close, too? You're too harsh, mate; reg'ler Prussian, I call you."

So it goes on. It's a bitter cold night. They are up nearly to their thighs in half-frozen slush. Their day's work has been entirely undone in half an hour, and has to be done over again without any interval for rest; and the supper ration's "gone West." You can hardly imagine what the loss of a meal means, with a night like that ahead of you, and occasional shells still dropping round the bit you must repair. They look awful ruffians, these chaps; caked all over with mud, hair and eyebrows and all; three or four days' stubble on their chins, and all kinds of ribaldry on their lips. They love their ease and creature comforts at least as much as any conscientious objector could; and God knows they are here as far removed from ease and creature comfort as men well could be—entirely of their own free will. And they will carry on all night, cracking their simple jokes and chaffing one another, and jostling each other to get to the front if one or two are required for anything extra dangerous. And the spirit that dictates their little jokes, isn't it as fine as any shown in bygone days by the aristocrats of France and England? If you told these fellows they were aristocrats, imagine how they'd take it! "'Ere, 'op it! Not so much of it! Wotcher givin' us?"

But aren't they—bless 'em! I tell you, when I come to compare 'em with the fellows we're up against across the way; with those poor devils of machine-driven Boches, with their record of brutish murder and swinishness in Belgium—why, there's not a shadow of doubt in my mind they are real aristocrats. The war has helped to make them so, of course. But, whatever the cause, they stand out, with the splendidly gallant poilus of France: true aristocrats—five hundred miles of 'em from the North Sea to Switzerland, pitted against the deluded and brutalised, machine-driven Boches. There are no officers and machine driving our fellows, or the cheery, jolly French soldiers. Held back occasionally, directed always, they may be. There's no need of any driving on our side. Unquestioning obedience to an all-powerful machine may be a useful thing in its way. I know a better, though; and that's convinced, willing, eager determination, guided—never driven—by officers who share it, and share everything else the men have and do. And that's what there is all down our side of the line, from the North Sea to Switzerland.

But, look here; I've just read through my last page, and it seems to me I've been preaching, ranting, perhaps. I'd better stow it and get on with my work. You see, one can't talk this kind of thing; and yet—I don't know, one feels it pretty often, and rather strongly. It's a bit of a relief to tell you something about it—in writing. Even to you, I probably shouldn't, by word of mouth, you know. One doesn't, somehow; but this sort of chatting with a pen is different. All I actually want to say, though it has taken such a lot of paper to say it on, is that the men really are splendid. I love them. (It certainly is easier writing than talking.) I want you to know about it; to know something about these chaps—they come from every class of the community—so that you'll love 'em, too. I wish we could make every woman, and every man and child, too, in England understand how fine these fellows are, and how fine, really, the life they're leading is.

For sheer hardness and discomfort there's nothing in the life of the poorest worker in England to compare with it. They are never out of instant danger. And the level of their spirits is far higher than you'd find it in any model factory or workshop at home. Death itself they meet with little jokes; I mean that literally. And the daily round of their lives is simply full of little acts of self-sacrifice, generosity, and unstudied, unnoted heroism, such as famous reputations are based upon in civil life in peace time. I feel I can't make it plain, as it deserves to be. I wish I could. But you must just accept it because I say it, and love 'em all—the French as well as ours—because they've made themselves loved by your

"Temporary Gentleman."