"I'M GOING OUT."

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 110, 19 November 1915, Page 1 (Supplement)

"I'M GOING OUT."

STa private who enlisted a YEAR AGO.

i.Londun "Daily Mail.") There's death, there's glory, there's shame, there's misery, there's hie iierce, vivid, and cruel; there are all these things out there. Into the middle of them I am about to be flung. 1 try to marshal my thoughts and array my ideas about it all, but they will not keep in line. It one knew whether one was coming back again U would be easier. But there's life ther« and there's death; and there's man gled, torn life and there's living death. And which of them all is it t» be? Exaltation and wild joy mingle with sorrow; a great, satisfied content jostles with a sickening feeling at tK heart. It must be so. For nearly a year I have trained and drilled and sweated in preparation for the grea* ordeal. It has not been easy to keep one's enthusiasm; the work has been often childish and sometimes futile; responsibility has barely existed. There is nothing in the Army's autocracy that can appeal to the private wh» turned his " Hurrahs" and nag-waving» into something tangible; to the patriot who suffered sergeant-majors that a month before delivered his letters to bawl " boy" at him and tell him to get his hair cut.

Tbo year has been so long and the war has been so far away—the soldier thinks least about the war and reads fewest newspapers —that it has been difficult to remember that all the sweating, all the drill, was not the ordeal, not the work, but only the preparation. Odd as it sounds, it has been when 1 have gone back to my old friends, when my home has been among civilians, that Flanders has come very near. As the months dragged by, though, the pleasure at going to one's town has been doubtful. Folk have a way of being surprised at sight of you and saying cheerily but disconcertingly "Hullo, not gone yetf" and bloodthirsty little boys 1 know ask me, " How many Germans have you stabbed?" and are beginning to have their doubts as to my being a soldier at all. 1 know that much of the time has beon spent in getting us bodily tit. Thw Army found us. out. Many of us, though, have been found out in a way that we had not thought of. None of us knew how very selfish we were; how little generosity was ours; how hasty some of our tempers, and how degenerate some of our gentleness. The Army found us out —though not all see it and not ail that see it admit it —on red-hot route marches, on rain-soaked nights, on days when tbod did not come or was not enough, in the heat of discussion, in the annoying of weaker ones. But though the Army found us out it did not spoil our hearts. Most of us are a b.t warmer-hearted, a bit more lntrebit warmer-hearted, a bit more intrelut out straight tor ourselves and other men.

There is ono life which for mine wouid gladly be given. How that lite will bear my deatii, if I die, i dare not think. There will be no angvr, though, against England, nor will there be remorse, for never has man or woman's duty lan so plain before them; never lias it been so easy to see the line that divides right from wrong, honour from dishonour. But never, too, has one seen life's end so near or imagined with such pain the effect on those that will be left. There can be nothing but sadness in bequeathing sorrow, be th* ideal ono dies for never so perfect. And, thinking so, one may regret, quite honestly and unashamedly 1 think, one's going out.

Not that I can believe 1 am to die. 1 *m young, with the optimism of youtn; and no healthy-minded youth thinks to die—yet. The great majority may go, yes; the uino hundred ot the thousand may be killed, but I—no. So every soldier thinks.

I do not go abroad with any false ideas of my worth. Going is all men's task —common, and only noble as each man may make it so. For it is easier to go than to stay behind, as it was easier to join the Army than to face jeers and gibes outside it. Injury is easier faced by most men than sneers, and death than the suspicion of cowardice.

There is no merit, is there, in leaving your dinner to go and light a man who is coming to steal your silver, plate or, a million times worse, insult your wile or your sister? If a man is making lor your garden to despoil it, it is natural, is it not, to go and meet him on his way in the lield over the river aud light him there ? Lastly, if a villain is coming to make you and yours his slaves, with death near if you fight, think you you will hesitate? Hesitate, when your brothers, your friends, mayhap dearer than brothers, are already wounded or fallen in the tight? Well, it is all as clear and simple as that.

One who goes with me bays, "Death I do not mind. Dying so would be quite the beet thing 1 have done; it would be my trump card." 1 cannot say so with honesty. I have not done enough, lived enough. But 1 am going out a little alive to the wild joys, the miseries, the horrors, the fear of it j with a great hope that X shall be an Englishman, trying to say with ltupert Brooke: Brooke: *

If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign. held That is for ever England.