III

So much for the rank and file.  Of the officers we need only say that the old hands have been a godsend to our young regiment; while the juniors, to quote their own Colonel, have learned as much in six months as the average subaltern learns in three years; and whereas in the old days a young officer could always depend on his platoon sergeant to give him the right word of command or instruct him in company routine, the positions are now in many cases reversed.  But that by the way.  The outstanding feature of the relationship between officers and men during all this long, laborious, sometimes heart-breaking winter has been this—­that, despite the rawness of our material and the novelty of our surroundings, in the face of difficulties which are now happily growing dim in our memory, the various ranks have never quite given up trying, never altogether lost faith, never entirely forgotten the Cause which has brought us together.  And the result—­the joint result—­of it all is a real live regiment, with a morale and soul of its own.

But so far everything has been purely suppositious.  We have no knowledge as to what our real strength or weakness may be.  We have run our trial trips over a landlocked stretch of smooth water.  To-morrow, when we steam out to face the tempest which is shaking the foundations of the world, we shall see what we shall see.  Some of us, who at present are exalted for our smartness and efficiency, will indubitably be found wanting—­wanting in stamina of body or soul—­while others, hitherto undistinguished, will come to their own.  Only War itself can discover the qualities which count in War.  But we silently pray, in our dour and inarticulate hearts, that the supreme British virtue—­the virtue of holding on, and holding on, and holding on, until our end is accomplished—­may not be found wanting in a single one of us.

To take a last survey of the regiment which we have created—­one little drop in the incredible wave which has rolled with gathering strength from, end to end of this island of ours during the past six months, and now hangs ready to crash upon the gates of our enemies—­what manner of man has it produced?  What is he like, this impromptu Thomas Atkins?

Well, when he joined, his outstanding feature was a sort of surly independence, the surliness being largely based upon the fear of losing the independence.  He has got over that now.  He is no longer morbidly sensitive about his rights as a free and independent citizen and the backbone of the British electorate.  He has bigger things to think of.  He no longer regards sergeants as upstart slave-drivers—­frequently he is a sergeant himself—­nor officers as grinding capitalists.  He is undergoing the experience of the rivets in Mr. Kipling’s story of “The Ship that Found Herself.”  He is adjusting his perspectives.  He is beginning to merge himself in the Regiment.