IS IT FATALISM?

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3198, 24 September 1917, Page 6

IS IT FATALISM?

PRESCIENCE IN BATTLE WHAT EVERY SOLDIER KNOWS . (By "Sylvius.") ■ What is that subtle something which J speaks indefinitely yet with startling ( clearness. to the sub-conscious soldier about to " go over the toil"? Almost every wounded man who has returned to Kew Zealand after an experience in the trenches can testify that somehow or other he knew he "would be all right," "that he would get one," or ? There is no humbug in this curious form of psychological warning being given to men about to "throw dice with death." One only has to read a proportion of the millions of soldiers' letters that are received from men who were about to face the fray, and have either been wounded or killed, to discover the number of instances in which men actually record the promptings of their sub-conscious minds, and .that with curious frequency that which'' they have apprehended has actually happened. But to get closer one has to get into community with a grpup of returned soldiers, who recognise tho existence of the prescient instinct so wholly and generally that it has long since passed tlie stage-of wonder. You will probably hear them say: "Jack knew ho was gone—said his last 'good-bye', before ho went over—and he got it before ho had gone twenty yards!' Speaking to a Wellington soldier whoso right arm was badly sliced by a shell splinter received on'-Mossines Kidge, the writer was rather astonished t,o hear lus conclusion not only supported, but fully endorsed. This man, quite seriously and without tho slightest intention of raising any wonder in his audience of four, said: "I knew I was going to get it that day. You can always tell. 1 was ]ust as confident that I was going to be wounded as I knew that I would not be killed, and tvTiea X saw the flash, of tlio shell bursting near mo it flashed across my mind, that my turn had come. I can remember~spinning round—then all was dark." When he came to he was sitting in a shell-crater paddling his feet in tho water. . . , A query that often arises in the mmd, but is seldom referred' to in connection with the war, is whether or not men about to "go over the top" on a desperate mission have any real fear of death. My llessines man spoke quite freely on he said, "I don't think th'ere is any- real fear of death among the men. They are frightened at the prospect 01 undergoing the agony of bad but there is.no tear of death. I had none. I knew somehow or other that J. was going to be wounded, but the thought of death simply never troubled me. I can only speak for myselt. it isn't a' subject on which anyone can speak for another man, but fr o ™ manner in which they 'go ovor I shou d say that the fear of death does not trouble them any more than it dul me. Even those chaps who may 'feel' they are going out, never to return, dont let it worry them. What's the, use? It has to come. comin "- W ™ rry That's the spirit which is keeping up the morale of our troops at the front. They are-there to fight-to die if needs be for King, country, civilisation, hon our what you will. And they light and die 'as our brave forefathers fought, carets of all save, that they are on the side of tho right. It is that, .pint which keeps them sane, and enables tlieir reaved ones to bear up. My Messines man's most cheering mes sage was that *11 along the hue, from the English Channel to Switzerland, they knew, with the certitude of death, that Fritz was itall licked. Ho could not tell why in so many words, but being in inWato contact with the enemy for a fevr months who was punctuated with strafes, raids, and big 'pushes, one an. <5l learned lbng agoUhat the Hun army on tho Western front was a beaten one.