with unnecessary anxiety, and that he had no right to allow the Germans to disturb his peace of mind.  If this were so, the presence of actual and tangible danger completely obliterated all traces of nerves.  He stood up in the firing-line.  He drew himself up to the full of his height, and seemed to inhale with pleasure the dangerous air.  All the time bullets were humming overhead like swift and malignant insects, or striking the ground with a spatter of brown earth.

The Adjutant, following him, suddenly bent double as if he had been struck below the belt; but the Colonel merely straightened himself, and not a nerve in his phlegmatic face twitched.

“What’s the matter?” asked the Colonel.

“Only a bullet struck my revolver hilt, sir,” replied the Adjutant.  It had splintered the woodwork and been deflected between his arm and ribs.

Near by a man rose on his knees to get a better shot at the enemy.

“What’s that man doing?  Get down there this moment!” roared the Colonel.

Then, as he recognised an old soldier of the regiment, “Atkins, how dare you expose yourself unnecessarily?  Your wife used to do my washing in Tidshot.  Me?  Oh, I’m only an old bachelor.  It doesn’t matter about me.  There’s nobody to care what happens to me.”  And, well pleased with his joke, the Colonel passed down the line, proud of his magnificent bravery.

There is something about the rough-and-tumble of battle that lifts one above one’s self.  One’s legs and arms are not the same listless limbs that were crying for rest only a short hour ago.  One is envigoured; the excitement stimulates.  One feels great, magnanimous, superb.  The difficulty lies not in forcing oneself to be brave, but in curbing ridiculous impulses, and in forcing the brain to work slowly and smoothly.  The smallest natures rise to great heights.  An ordinary self-centred creature performs acts of dazzling generosity towards fellows he does not even know—­with everything to lose and nothing to gain.  He will rescue a wounded man under heavy fire, to whom an hour previously he would have refused to lend sixpence.

Why is it?

If the enemy were a roaring brazen beast, such as the knights of the fairy tales used to fight, one could understand it.  But he is not.  You cannot even see him.  Three-quarters of a mile ahead there is a dark brown line, and that is all.  Whence comes the love of battle?  Is it roused by the little messengers of death that whizz invisibly by?  No one can say; the whole feeling is most probably the result of imagination and desire to do great things.

On they swept.  The leading Platoon was now covering the ground at such a pace that it was impossible to catch up with them.  As the ground was open the whole line could be seen sweeping forward to engulf the enemy.  The long dotted lines of brown advanced steadily and inexorably.  Line upon line of them breasted the crest, and followed in the wake of the leading wave.  It was scarcely a spectacular sight, yet it was the vindication of the British methods of attack.