The one exception was the tune that had been so popular in
"Three Cheers"--the one called "The Laddies Who Fought and Won." Few
of the boys had been home since I had been singing that song, but it
has a catching lilt, and they were soon able to join in the chorus
and send it thundering along. They took to it, too--and well they
might! It was of such as they that it was written.
We covered perhaps a hundred miles a day during this period. That
does not sound like a great distance for high-powered motor cars, but
we did a good deal of stopping, you see, here and there and
everywhere. We were roaming around in the backwater of war, you might
say. We were out of the main stream of carnage, but it was not out of
our minds and our hearts. Evidences of it in plenty came to us each
day. And each day we were a little nearer to the front line trenches
than we had come the day before. We were working gradually toward
that climax that I had been promised.
I was always eager to talk to officers and men, and I found many
chances to do so. It seemed to me that I could never learn enough
about the soldiers. I listened avidly to every story that was told
to me, and was always asking for more. The younger officers,
especially, it interested me to talk with. One day I was talking
to such a lieutenant.
"How is the spirit of your men?" I asked him. I am going to tell you
his answer, just as he made it.
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