most men are afraid every time, but their courage consists in forcing themselves to go ahead.
Mud and putrefaction! That is war. The only excuse for it is to prevent it ever happening again.
When they get home, America can give nothing adequate to reward these boys for what they have done for her. You Americans in your comfortable homes may think you can imagine what they have been through, but your imagination cannot approach the horrors of the front. You cannot possibly know the value of what you have—warmth, food, a dry place to sleep; you cannot know the worth of one minute of peace, one minute of security from death that creeps, that stalks, that flies. The everlasting gratitude of their countrymen is the most that these boys can have and the least that they deserve, and it will be an immeasurable shame if one of these two millions is ever in need of anything which the Nation can give. Do not be deceived by their modesty, Americans; never forget what they have done for you.
From Villers through a drowsy drizzle I pursued the advancing front by the noise of the guns. The country was hilly here, and the sound which reverberated through the valleys was as if many giants were slamming great iron doors with huge hammers of bronze. There was something im-
