MAN BEHIND THE GUN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15931, 31 May 1915, Page 5

MAN BEHIND THE GUN.

" SUPREME - CONFIDENCE."

The " Eye - witness " who - writes from , }~ the British Headquarters in an article ./ dated March 30 says 1 - ." If there is one thing— it has be-;.-" • come even more noticeable during the last y few weeks—which strikes those who go= s about amongst our men, whether in tho trenches, in billets, .or in the ' hospitals, it is that the thought uppermost in their minds is not of their own hardships and sufferings, "but of tlio c progress of tho war , in .general' and of the operations on our front in particular. The first question ' that a wounded man usually . asks is: ' How far did we get? Did wo take such and such a. trench or position?' He may have been maimed for. life; most of his comrades may have been killed; but these things concern him littlo in com- : parison with the point cf whether his battalion or company accomplished tin: task assigned to them. _ "Nothing else matters. All these questions of hours of work and wages which are agitating his" friends at home are utterly strange to him. Ho accepts everything," the heaviest losses to his unit as ' well a 1? his own personal misfortunes, in complete cheerfulness, so long as he knows that we are winning. " Not that the feeling throughout the army has ever been other than one of supreme confidence in the eventual result; but there is now something more than that. Every man feel; that the long, dreary winter is pasty and that it is no longer a question merely of ' sticking it' in wet trenches under a rain vof highexplosive from above and in tho everpresent danger of a mine from tinder- ! neath. Ho feels that the time for the realisation of his hopes is arriving, and that ho is, in his own words, 'going to get a bit of his own back.'"