Page:Mr. Punch's history of the Great War, Graves, 1919.djvu/186

 Steadfast and calm, unmoved by blame or praise, By local checks or Fortune's strange caprices, You dedicate laborious nights and days To shattering the Hun machine to pieces; And howsoe'er at times the battle sways The Army's trust in your command increases; Patient in preparation, swift in deed, We find in you the leader that we need.

A new feature of the German armies are the special "stormtroops"; men picked for their youth, vigour, and daring, and fortified by a specially liberal diet for the carrying out of counter-attacks. Even our ordinary British soldiers, who are constantly compelled to take these brave fellows prisoners, bear witness to the ferocity of their appearance.

On our Home Front the Germans have shown considerable activity of late. Daylight air-raids are no longer the monopoly of the South-east coast; they have extended to London. And a weekly paper, conspicuous for the insistence with which it proclaims its superiority to all others, has been asking: If 17 German aeroplanes can visit and bomb London in broad daylight, what is to prevent our enemy from sending 170 or even 1,700? Fortunately the average man and woman pays no heed to this scare-mongering, and goes about his or her business, if not rejoicing, at any rate in the conviction that the Gothas are not going to have it all their own way.

Considering that the "Fort of London" had been drenched with the "ghastly dew" of aerial navies barely three hours before Parliament met on June 13, Members showed themselves uncommon calm. They were at their best a few days earlier in paying homage to Major Willie Redmond. It had been his ambition to be Father of the House: he had been elected thirty-four years ago; but in reality he was the Eternal Boy from the far-off time when it was his nightly delight to "cheek" Mr. Speaker Brand with delightful exuberance until the moment of his glorious death in Flanders, whither he had gone at an age when most of his compeers were content to play the critic in a snug corner of the smoking-room. Personal affection combined with admiration for his gallantry to inspire the speeches in which Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Asquith, and Sir