a will to victory for the sake of peace and right and with a settled courage that nothing could shake. They descended into the pit and fought with beasts, but remained unconquerably human. Noel Hodgson, coming out of the desperate fighting at Loos, wrote on his way back to the rest camp:
We that have seen the strongest
Cry like a beaten child,
The sanest eyes unholy,
The cleanest hands defiled;
We that have known the heart-blood
Less than the lees of wine,
We that have seen men broken,
We know man is divine.
And Dennys, when his death was imminent, sent up from amidst the carnage and desolation a vastly different message than that which Achilles shouted over his trenches:
But now I know that nought is purposeless,
And, even in destruction, we can find
A power whose steady motive is to bless
The ultimate redemption of mankind....
Ours is the privilege of sacrifice,
And cheerfully we heap the sacred pyre,
Our willing selves the offering—the price
Demanded to make fierce the cleansing fire.
