formed into a fortress. We were to take and hold it at all costs. The morning was dark and misty, and as we stood in our trench, knee-deep in the slush, despite the excitement of the anticipated charge, the blood was chilled.
"Yes," said I. "I suppose the bravest sometimes weaken; but in our stronger moments we must feel that the sacrifice is not in vain. Those who come after will remember. If we win, they will have owed the victory, the redemption, to us."
"And if we fail?" said my friend.
"The manner of our going will teach them how to 'follow on!'"
My companion had but recently joined our regiment—a youngster of twenty-two, fresh from a sedentary occupation in the city of London; the toughening process of his training had not yet inured him to the horrors of war. He had been in action only once since coming to the front, and after the fury of the slaughter was past he had sobbed like a child at the thought of what he had called the "murder" he himself had wrought. During the last four days we had discussed constantly that inevitable law of the universe which demands that all evolution, all progress, shall result only from perpetual conflict. My own reading had made me familiar with the philosophers and the metaphysicians, and our dingy dugout
