But for
stringent regulations they would have fraternized with the enemy at
the slightest excuse, and did so in the winter of 1914, to the great
scandal of G. H. Q. "What's patriotism?" asked a boy of me, in Ypres,
and there was hard scorn in his voice. Yet the love of the old country
was deep down in the roots of their hearts, and, as with a boy who
came from the village where I lived for a time, the name of some such
place held all the meaning of life to many of them. The simple minds
of country boys clung fast to that, went back in waking dreams to
dwell in a cottage parlor where their parents sat, and an old clock
ticked, and a dog slept with its head on its paws. The smell of the
fields and the barns, the friendship of familiar trees, the heritage
that was in their blood from old yeoman ancestry, touched them with
the spirit of England, and it was because of that they fought.
The London lad was more self-conscious, had a more glib way of
expressing his convictions, but even he hid his purpose in the war
under a covering of irony and cynical jests.
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