LAND AND WATER. 
July 31, 1915. 
SEEN AT THE FRONT. 
IV.— SIDELIGHTS ON TOMMY ATKINS. 
By An Officer. 
few lines tliough the siiells is bursting overhead 
something terrible, and tlie row is awful. I have had 
men killed either side of me. My pal, Jim, got a bullet 
through the jaw alongside me, and fell back stone- 
dead. ..." The writer, it so happened, penned 
his graphic description at least ten miles from the fight- 
'ng zone and had never been under fire in his life. Vet 
Tlir-:y were lying side by side in a shell-hole 
upon a battlefield. We "were waiting for a suit- 
able moment to make the next rush. There was 
lots of noise and a likely prospect of sudden 
death, but, chancing to be next door, I lieard 
what passed. Private Atkins had found a pistol. Not 
liking the look of it, he was showing tiie weapon to his 
friend. " That's a German, Jock, 1 reclcon, ain't it V '| 
he remarks. " That ain't no perishin' German," 
replies the friend. " Can't yer see the [)irmiiigham trade- 
mark?" Private Atkins has another look, and prompliy 
bets his tobacco-pouch and pipe (new and silver-mounted) 
that the pistol is a German. " Fat 'ead," rejoins Jock 
shortlv. " Yer don't know the difference between a pistol 
and a'cap-star." He crawls to the edge of the crater and 
peers over. A shell bursts quite close and the shower 
of earth and bullets causes him to duck back into the 
hole. He produces from his pocket tiie yellow stump 
of a half-smoked cigarette. Private Atkins throws across 
a box of matches and the nasty-looking object is 
solemnly lit. Then the two friends fall to arguing again. 
Now it is the pistol, now it is Manchester L'nited, and 
now the why and the wherefore of " this battle." 
So it goes oil, in the intervals permitted by a tornado of 
guns, for two immortal Iiours. God forbid that I should 
reproduce even a sample of the abuse they liurled at each 
other, even a tithe of the names they called each other. 
Just occasionally they woiild exchange a cigarette or a 
piece of chocolate to show there was no ill-feeling. Pre- 
sently we went on, and I never saw eitlier of them again. 
Probably the}- were killed. If so they went to Heaven 
with blasphemy on their lips, and, no doubt, a great 
friendliness and affection in their hearts. 
Such is the way of Thomas Atkins. Through 
eleven crowded months of war, out of an ordeal of stress 
and crisis and peril such as this country has never 
known, his squat khaki figure has emerged as the 
final epitome of all the national effort. In critical times 
men like to make a hero. No General or Admiral, but 
Tommy Atkins is their hero to-day. And one comes to 
know him pretty well, this fellow who wrangles about 
football and pistols on battlefields, who is always the 
same, always dependable, always humorous and enter- 
taining, never much better or much worse than his com- 
rade. .Not that he lacks individuality. No. At home one 
inclines to think of him as of a hero — at the front one 
realises himasan individual. Nor isitallogether the same 
nian. He makes a mistake who thinks that the British 
soldier is incapable of perception and reflection. There is 
little imagination, I grant, and it is as well. But the power 
of assimilating impressions is there all the time — only 
they are slow to sink in. Moreover, the average man has 
no capacity for transmitting his notions of things and 
events — of putting his ideas into words. He mav indicate 
in his own bald, yet forcible, manner what occurred, but 
he cannot convey his particular point of view towards it. 
More often he substitutes a ludicrously exaggerated and 
garbled account of any particular experience. He 
allows the crude nucleus of his imagination to run riot, 
and the result is a perfect orgy of bayoneted Germans 
and superhuman feats in which the raconteur plays a 
leading part. Anyone who has visited hospitals knows 
what I mean. It is the habit of wounded soldiers — want- 
ing anything better to do — to practise their sense of 
humour on unsophisticated young ladies and others. 
For the same reason, one should not slake the 
fate of a friend or relative upon the word of a private 
soldier. You will get the worst conceivable version, it is 
pretty certain. 
In wliich connection I couM quote the letter of a 
young soldier known to me who addressed his mother 
in these words: "Dear Mother,— I am writinff these 
writing 
by one of liiose strange ironies of fate wliich nowadays 
so often turn comedy into tragedy the very first time the 
poor fellow did coriie under fire he met his death in 
precisely the manner he had himself described. 
It is through tiie private soldier's letters home that 
one comes to know his mind. To the company officer 
this censoring of letters is at once a penalty and a privi- 
lege. There were many kinds of letters. There was a 
stereotyped way of beginning as there was of ending. 
" Dear Bella, "one would write to a sweetlieart; " a few 
lines hoping this finds you well. Dear Bella, I wish we 
were back together in the old town again. Dear Bella, 
it is very cold here. . . . Lots of kisses, dear Bella, 
from your ever-loving boy, Tom," &-c. There is not a 
wide range of adjective or endearment. The younger 
soldiers were invariably " in the pink " or " hoping this 
finds you well as it leaves me." " Tell the boys I was 
asking for them and remember me to all friends " was 
another favourite phrase. " Lizzie " and " Bert 
always came in somewhere, whilst " Uncle Bob 
appears to be related to three-quarters of the British 
Army. They wrote to their schoolmasters, to their busi- 
ness employers, and often to some mysterious spinster 
lady who, as the saying is, " corresponded." Then 
there was the older man, writing to his wife, grave 
letters full of patience and responsibility, hoping 
" things were a little easier at home," hoping 
there was plenty of money and food, exhorting 
the good woman to bear up and be cheerful 
for his sake, " tell little Stanley father will soon 
be home — how is he getting on with his schooling, the 
little dear? " — " pray God, this terrible war will soon 
be over and I shall be spared to come back to you again." 
And through all these letters there runs a touching faith 
that the end of the war is at the most only a question of 
two or three months. " And then we shall be all togetiier 
again at home." In many, too, there occurs again and 
again an unexpectedly religious vein. I noticed it 
directly we reached the front. " We are in the 
Almighty's hands "is a constant phrase, with such 
interjections as " God willing " or " my faith is in the 
Lord "— obviously genuine expressions, commonly 
from young soldiers, but often, too, from hard-bitten 
old " nuts " of whom such sentiments could scarcely be 
expected. 
Not that Tommy Atkins on active service is by any 
means a saint. Like the rest of us, he has his faults. At 
the least and at the best he is a great, honest, simple, and, 
on the whole, a patient, child. But I will not say that 
he is absolutely uncomplaining or even uncommonly 
simple. No; for he is also a bit of a rascal. Age and 
experience bring a certain craftiness, a certain guile, and 
your old soldier is master of all the tricks that long cam- 
paigning ever taught. It is the same in every trade. 
This one never spares the raw recruit. He has to learn. 
Nor, perliaps, does he find that process agreeable. But 
always — and it is part of his equipment as a fighting man 
— there comes to the rescue his saving sense of humour. 
Coarse it is, at times, no doubt, quite abominably licen- 
tious and unrestrained — and laughable to a degree— but 
it carries him through. 
Finally, there is that curious sixth sense — 
neither of appropriateness nor the reverse, but decidedly 
gay and lovable — which fixes on catch-words, and 
selects from obscurity such well-known ditties as " It's a 
Long, Long Way to Tipperar}-.** 
PiintoU hy the Victouta Housi: Pcinting Co., Ltd., Tudor Street, Whitefriars, London, E.G. 
