Poor Tommy Atkins is surrounded by a sort of halo in the popular
imagination, simply because it is known that he may one day have to deal
forth death to an enemy, or take his own doom, according to the chances
of combat. I need say little about the field-days and reviews which have
caused so many martially-minded young men to take the shilling. The
crash of the small-arm firing, the wild galloping of hasty
aides-de-camp, the measured movement of serried lines, the rapid flight
of flocks of bedizened staff-officers, all make up a very exciting and
confusing picture, and many a youngster has fancied that war must be a
glorious game. Let us leave the picturesque and theatrical business and
come to the dry prose.
So far from being an affair of glitter, excitement, fierce joy, fierce
triumph, war is but a round of hideous hours which bring memories of
squalor, filth, hunger, wretchedness, dull toil, unspeakable misery.
Take it at its best, and consider what a modern engagement really means.
Recollect, moreover, that I am about to use sentences accurate as a
photograph. The sportive Pressman says, "Vernon began to find the
enemy's cloud of sharp-shooters troublesome, so the 5th sought better
cover on the right, leaving Brown free to develop his artillery fire.
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