Page:The War and the Future (Masefield, 1918).djvu/99

Rh right to the other end of the trench, and it burst just as it got there. It killed two of our Bert's best friends, but if our Bert hadn't flung it just when he done, it would have killed our Bert."

During the course of this war some six or seven millions of men have been drawn into the English Army from every rank of society, and have submitted to a pretty rough test. Under that test, thousands of men, who had had no opportunity of showing what was in them in time of peace, have risen to positions of great dignity, trust and authority. And as a result, the Army today is a thoroughly democratic thing. At the beginning of the war it was not so. I know of a case, in which a rich man enlisted with his shepherd. He told the shepherd, when he enlisted, "Of course, I shall pay your wages as my shepherd all the time that we are serving." When they were in the Battalion the shepherd soon proved himself to be the better man. The shepherd became a Sergeant and his master remained a private. Presently, the master did something wrong and the shepherd had him up and got him ten days' fatigue. As he left the court, the master leaned over to the shepherd and said: "Your wages are stopped for these ten days." That was in