The second is from the Rev. E.L. Watson, and forcibly depicts to us the highest form of courage--courage that triumphs in spite of fear and triumphs through Christ. Such courage is the possession of every Christian soldier.
"At another farm-house in absolute darkness and silence we reached our second dressing station. The regimental medical officer was absent, but the sergeant in charge was ready to deliver over his charge. I stepped into what appeared to be a large living room covered with straw, upon which some fifteen men were lying in absolute silence. No groans, no word of complaint escaped the lips of a single man, no asking for drink, nor claiming first assistance. I felt my way over several, and was able to whisper a word of cheer here and there. One badly wounded man guided my hand to that of a lad near by with the words, 'Speak a word to that lad, chaplain, he must need his mother.' Out of that darkness one by one they were carefully lifted on to stretchers and put into the ambulances.
"One incident impressed me very much that night in that chamber of agony. Just as the last man was being carried out I heard a sob near by me, and putting out my hand touched a stretcher-bearer who had become jumpy. Poor boy, and no wonder. Only seventeen years of age, and away from home for the first time. Empty stomach and soaked clothes, bringing in and remaining with the wounded till relieved, with death outside at every step. This first night of his experience with war was trying his strength and testing his nerve. I took his hand, and whispered a message, and I heard him go out with his little company again towards the trenches over a fire-swept area.
"Men claim that heroism always comes to the front in a crisis, and so it does, but I have learned too that the heroic soul is not always the fearless one. In the case of this lad the sense of duty overcame his sense of fear, and away he went to face death, brave and heroic, in spite of a trembling heart and unsteady hand."
Yet one more picture of heroism, and it is, indeed, a strange one. There is a touch of unconscious humour in it, but for all that it is grandly heroic.
Six Royal Field Artillery men, soldiers of the King and of the Salvation Army too, have been holding daily prayer meetings just behind the guns, and have succeeded in capturing several of their comrades as "trophies." There was no "penitent rail" to which to invite them, and so, notwithstanding the cold, they piled their overcoats together, and kneeling at this improvised "rail" their comrades gave themselves to Christ.