IX
The clamorous guns by day and night
Toss echoes to and fro,
White-winged above the dusty fight
The ranging war-hawks go,
And stout King Richard's proud array
Is but a shining tale,
But English courage goes as gay
In khaki as in mail.
Lieut. A. L. Jenkins, Crusaders.
I AM not attempting anything of criticism here; I am attempting nothing more than to show in their own words what was in their hearts and minds when these men of peace, these civilians in grain, made soldiers of themselves under stress of necessity, and what was the real object of their fighting. Going about their every-day business in the trenches or in the hurly-burly of conflict, they were like the rest of that incomparable fellowship of our fighting men who, as Lieutenant Coningsby Dawson has it in his Khaki Courage, 'wear their crown of thorns as if it were a cap and bells'; but behind the scenes,
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