"
Seated on high stools in the Folkestone, our young officers clinked
their cocktails, and then whispered together.
"When's it coming?"
"In a few days . . . I'm for the Gommecourt sector."
"Do you think we shall get through?"
"Not a doubt of it. The cavalry are massing for a great drive. As soon
as we make the gap they'll ride into the blue."
"By God! . . . There'll be some slaughter"
"I think the old Boche will crack this time."
"Well, cheerio!"
There was a sense of enormous drama at hand, and the excitement of it
in boys' hearts drugged all doubt and fears. It was only the older
men, and the introspective, who suffered from the torture of
apprehension. Even timid fellows in the ranks were, I imagine,
strengthened and exalted by the communal courage of their company or
battalion, for courage as well as fear is infectious, and the
psychology of the crowd uplifts the individual to immense heights of
daring when alone he would be terror--stricken. The public-school
spirit of pride in name and tradition was in each battalion of the New
Army, extended later to the division, which became the unit of esprit
de corps.
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