field a soldier will turn aside under a hail of bullets to carry a wounded comrade into safety. It is in countless records of the present war: in the narrative of how the men of a British battery were shattered and decimated till only three remained, and these three, wounded as they were, worked the last gun unflinchingly until relief could be sent to them; in that of how a retiring troop of war-worn Britishers handed their rations over to starving refugees; in that of how, whenever our seamen sink the enemy's ships they promptly lower their boats to save the drowning Huns. And see how finely a stray act of German chivalry can shine out against the black record her hordes have elsewhere made for themselves. Somewhere along the Marne, a French sergeant and two hundred men were cut off from their regiment and surrounded. They held their ground till every man of them was killed or wounded; then when the victors swept in upon them the German commander saluted the French sergeant and was so keen to honour his bravery that he had him carried from the
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Soldier Poets
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