Here one fact may suffice as a sample. The weekly consumption of high
explosives by the Army is now between eleven and twelve thousand times as
much as it was in September, 1914. Yet when a lieutenant is asked to state
what it is really like being along with the B.E.F. when it is in its
pushful mood, he sedulously eschews heroics, and will not commit himself to
saying more than that it's all right--that he doesn't think there is any
cause for anxiety. "We seem to have ceased to have sensations out here. It
is a matter of business; the only question is how long is it going to take
to complete." So, too, with the Tommies. "Wonderful," declares the man in
the ranks to persistent seekers after thrilling descriptions of war. "You
never see the like. Across in them trenches there was real soda-water in
bottles." To return to our lieutenant, he "simply can't help being a little
sorry for the Boche now that his wild oats are coming home to roost." Even
his poetic friends, formerly soulful and precious, take this restrained
view. The Attributes of the Enemy are thus summed up by one trench bard:
If Boches laughed and Huns were gents,
They'd own their share of continents;
There'd be no fuss, and, what is more,
There wouldn't even be a war.
Whereas the end of all this tosh
Can only be there'll be no Boche.
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