"What do you think of that?" enquired the major. "Isn't he a scream?"
"He is perfectly magnificent," said Barry, "and, after all, he is right
in his psychology. There is no possibility of training men to fight,
without putting the 'aight into it!'"
CHAPTER XIV
A TOUCH OF WAR
The period of intensive training was drawing to a close. The finishing
touches in the various departments that had come to be considered
necessary in modern warfare had been given. With the "putting on the
lacquer" the fighting spirit of the men had been sharpened to its
keenest edge. They were all waiting impatiently for the order to "go
up." The motives underlying that ardour of spirit varied with the
temperament, disposition and education of the soldier. There were those
who were eager to "go up" to prove themselves in that deadly struggle
where their fellow Canadians had already won their right to stand as
comrades in arms with the most famous fighting battalions of the British
army. Others, again, there were in whose heart burned a deep passion to
get into grips with those hellish fiends whose cruelties, practised upon
defenceless women and children in that very district where they were
camped, and upon wounded Canadians, had stirred Canada from Vancouver to
Halifax with a desire for revenge.
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