Fighting

“ I could go into the fighting with a sort of a titillation—an unholy joy in fighting for its own sake, quite apart from any feeling for any cause. I believe that that is the feeling which animates most men who volunteer to fight. ”

“ For all fighting, whether at long range or at close quarters, is very much alike, from schoolboys’ games to the most elaborate military operations; and all the advice of the world may be summed up in the eternal law of attack and defence, which is stated in these four words:—cunning, caution, energy, audacity. ”

“ This is the story of a fight. In the first story of this book, I said that Mary and I had seen a remarkable fight one evening at sundown on the slopes of the bare brown foothills west of the campus. It was not a battle of armies—we have seen that, too, in the little world we watch,—but a combat of gladiators, a struggle between two champions born and bred for fighting, and particularly for fighting each other. ”

“ For the man who should loose me is dead, Fighting with the Duke in Flanders, In a pattern called a war. Christ! What are patterns for? ”

“ Here, soldiers, where you have first met the enemy, you must conquer or die; and the same fortune which has imposed the necessity of fighting holds out to you, if victorious, rewards than which men are not wont to desire greater, even from the immortal gods. ”

“ If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight, even though the ruler forbid it; if fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler’s bidding. ”

“ Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. ”

“ That is the whole secret of successful fighting. Get your enemy at a disadvantage; and never, on any account, fight him on equal terms. ”

“ “I am not fighting a hopeless fight. People who have fought in real fights don’t, as a rule. ”

“ But if a man were present now at the field of slaughter, and were to inquire for what they were fighting—"Fighting!", would be the answer; "they are not fighting; they are pausing." "Why is that man expiring? ”

“ So it was in him, then—an inherited fighting instinct, a driving intensity to kill. ”

“ When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, the men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardour will be damped. ”

“ That fighting of a battle without belief is, I think, the sorriest task which ever falls to the lot of any man. ”

“ And the blue blood runs in your veins;
While I, alas! am but of common birth
Whom war is splashing with its crimson stains.
A soldier who has taken Honour's vow
To share the grandest task on God's wide earth. ”

“ Of Blood, through which our fathers ofttimes trod.
And we must wait; for unto them alone
The Truth is naked who themselves, ahead
Of all their fellow-men, away have thrown
Their Life, and on the battlefield lie dead. ”

“ Back to Rest
(Composed on the way back to the Rest Camp after severe fighting at Loos.)
A LEAPING wind from England,
⁠The skies without a stain,
Clear cut against the morning
⁠Slim poplars after rain,
The foolish noise of sparrows
⁠And starlings in a wood—
After the grime of battle
⁠We know that these are good.
Death whining down from Heaven,
⁠Death roaring from the ground,
Death stinking in the nostril,
⁠Death shrill in every sound:
Doubting we charged and conquered—
⁠Hopeless we struck and stood,
Now when the fight is ended
⁠We know that it was good. ”

“ History is being made every day and heroism is displayed, unrivalled in any previous conflict. In this book the author has striven to chronicle some of the valorous deeds and to relate some of the incidents and events that are part of the everyday life of the soldier who is fighting in France. ”

“ Ere comes the light
Of morn brave men must arm, stern foes to fight.
The sentry stands his limbs with cold congealed;
His head a-nod with sleep; he cannot yield,
Though sleep and snow in deadly force unite. ”

“ Then the creatures of the high air answered to the battle, foretelling the destruction that would be done that day; and the sea chattered of the losses, and the waves gave heavy shouts keening them, and the water-beasts roared to one another, and the rough hills creaked with the danger of the battle, and the woods trembled mourning the heroes, and the grey stones cried out at their deeds, and the wind sobbed telling them, and the earth shook, foretelling the slaughter; and the cries of the grey armies put a blue cloak over the sun, and the clouds were dark; ”

“ Onward we trudge, a hostile herd,
⁠On through our night;
God's creatures less than beast or bird;
⁠A bloody sight.
Slaves to our own decree, burnt through of fires,
Doubting our Maker's love, or His desires. ”

“ Men shall cry,
⁠"This was a nation marvellously wrought!"
II
There came a voice from out the darkness crying—
⁠A pleading voice, the voice of one in thrall—
"Come, ye who pass—oh, heed ye not my sighing?
⁠Come and deliver! Hear, oh hear my call!
For when the invader stood before my gate
⁠Demanding passage through with haughty tone,
A voice cried loud, 'Wilt thou endure this fate?
⁠Better have death than live when honour's flown!'
And so my children now lie slain by him
⁠I had not wronged; with strife my land is riven ”

“ God-sent maid leads fighting men.
This day they name her—LIBERTY . . .
God grant she'll win the victory!
Mother of Sons
YOUR hands are tired with their long day's labour,
⁠Toil-worn hands that have worked with a will ”

“ When I think of my own men, when I think of all the men floundering and fighting in this mud, I can find no other means of [Pg 61] expression than the words that have already served the Commander in Chief of the French Army, General Pétain, on the evening of his great victory at the Chemin des Dames. In receiving the American newspapermen, he said to them:
"Do not speak of us, the generals and the officers. Speak only of the men. We have done nothing; the men have done everything. Our men are wonderful; we, their leaders, can only kneel at their feet." ”

“ Three minutes had not yet passed, yet a complete transformation had occurred on the Brooklyn. Five hundred men had scuttled to as many different directions, battle hatches had been lowered, water-tight compartments closed, hose attached and decks wet down, fire tubs filled, magazines opened, hoists put into operation, and ammunition delivered to turret, decks, and to the fighting-tops. ”

“ Then came the war, with its strong appeal to chivalry and hardihood and moral fervour, and our young men responded not only with the hazard of their lives, but with all the warmth and generosity of deeply stirred hearts. ”

“ I will make the blood to stream from their joints, when the sculls of the warriors leap from the blow of my sword. How many chiefs, when they see me eager in the fight, throw away their arms, and save themselves by flight! I am the bold one. As to [85] the fire of war, I kindle it, and hurl the tribes into punishments and death. Death, in the direful combat, fears me, when the battle-dust rises; and the sand-cloud is like a blazing fire. My joy is in the encounter of heroes, when spears and swords clash in my grasp. How many battle-dusts have I dived into, fearless of calamities! ”

“ IT will be noticed that my preparation for combat fighting in the air was a gradual one. As I look back upon it now, it seems that I had the rare good fortune to experience almost every variety of danger that can beset the war pilot before I ever fired a shot at an enemy from an aeroplane. This good fortune is rare, it appears to me. Many a better man than myself has leaped into his stride and begun accumulating victories from his very first flight over the lines. ”

“ Leon and Earl were particularly interested to learn that large forces of Russian troops were now fighting side by side with their allies on the western front. They had not heard that there were Russian soldiers in France, although such reports had often been freely circulated. A soldier knows little about the war in which he fights; he sees what takes place on the ground in the immediate vicinity of the place where he is located but the general outcome or fortunes of battles he knows nothing about. ”

“ So we are shown the spectacle, in case of war, of all the nations making war at once, without the least hesitation, without delay, without any discussion, against the people that disturbs the peace of the world. ”

“ Strength exhausted, arrows spent, bow-strings snapped, swords shattered, the two armies fall upon one another in the supreme struggle for life or death. To yield is to become the barbarian's slave: to fight is to mingle our bones with the desert sand... ”

“ Where I can fight for liberty and Thee.
Give others, God, the glory; mine the right
To stand beside my comrades in the fight,
To die, if need be, in some foreign land—
Absolved and solaced by a soldier's hand.
O Lord, my God, pray barken to my prayer
And keep me ever humble, keep me where
The fight is thickest, where, 'midst steel and flame,
Thy sons give battle, calling on Thy name. ”

“ Those who array themselves as foes to smite us, O Indra, be they kin or be they strangers,- Strike thou their manly strength that it be feeble, and drive in headlong flight our foemen backward. 4. With strength of limb the hero slays the hero, when bright in arms they range them for the combat. When two opposing hosts contend in battle for seed and offspring, waters, kine, or corn-lands. 5. Yet no strong man hath conquered thee, no hero, no brave, no warrior trusting in his valour. ”

“ CHOR. Dread the battle, and stout the combat, mighty and manifold looms the war. Hard to decide in the fight they're waging, One like a stormy tempest raging, One alert in the rally and skirmish, clever to parry and foin and spar. Nay but don't be content to sit Always in one position only: many the fields for your keen-edged wit. ”

“ A battle offers the spectacle of, say, a hundred thousand men lifted up suddenly and simultaneously into a mood of intensest passion—heroic or diabolical—eager to kill and willing to be killed; a mood in which death and wounds count for nothing and victory for everything. ”

“ Our gracious Lord hath gathered here in one,
For all your foes and his assembled are,
That one day’s fight may end seven years of war.
XV
“This fight shall bring us many victories,
The danger none, the labor will be small,
Let not the number of your enemies
Dismay your hearts, grant fear no place at all;
For strife and discord through their army flies,
Their bands ill ranked themselves entangle shall,
And few of them to strike or fight shall come,
For some want strength, some heart, some elbow-room. ”

“ And to resent with arms all injuries, Or snares and pit-falls for a neighbor lay, Absurd he deems, as it would be, upon The field, surrounded by the enemy, The foe forgetting, bitter war With one’s own friends to wage, And in the hottest of the fight, With cruel and misguided sword, One’s fellow soldiers put to flight. ”

“ In all strife where courage is tested, and power, From the meet on the hill-side, the horn-blast, the find, The burst, the long gallop that seems to devour The champaign, all obstacles flinging behind, To the cheer and the clarion, the war-music blended With war-cry, the furious dash at the foe, The terrible shock, the recoil, and the splendid Bare sword, flashing blue, rising red from the blow. ”

“ And from afar there comes a sound like the confused din of battle,—muffled roaring of cannon, the clatter of fire-arms, the rumble of the earth beneath the hoofs of raging horses,—prayers for the dying can be heard, beseeching pleas to the guider of battles, the chaos and the anguish and the wrath of the fight move farther and farther away ”

“ If you desire to spend your time in hunting them down, I have no doubt you could find them all."
"How many of them are there on the island, Captain Stopfoot?"
"The mate, four deck-hands, and two firemen. It would not be a difficult task for you to capture them all, for I did not look upon them as fighting material; they have crowded about all the men of that sort into the army."
"I have no desire to find them, and they may 326 stay on the key till doomsday, so far as I am concerned," replied Christy. "We don't regard the men employed on blockade-runners as of much account. ”

“ That gleams and leads us, steadfast, to His end,
The darkling years when only Hope is friend
To Courage who, from where our foes embroil,
Still calls us onward—onward tho' the soil
Engulf both us and all that we defend? ”

“ The battle is not yours; it is not in your own strength, not for your own cause, that you engage; the battle is God's: he does and will, as you have desired, interest himself in the cause." 3. He gives them intelligence of the motions of the enemy, and orders them to march towards them, with particular directions where they should find them. ”

“ Who know the conflict, hand-to-hand—the many conflicts in the dark, those shadowy-tangled, flashing moonbeam'd woods—the writhing groups and squads—the cries, the din, the cracking guns and pistols—the distant cannon—the cheers and calls and threats and awful music of the oaths—the indescribable mix—the officers' orders, persuasions, encouragements—the devils fully rous'd in human hearts—the strong shout, Charge, men, charge—the flash of the naked sword, and rolling flame and smoke? ”

“ The young soldier who in his first battle tastes the bitterness of defeat and endures the hardships of the hurried march, the wakeful rest under arms, the wretched food, the dirt and worse than dirt, the continual strain upon the nerves, and all things else which are the portion of the conquered, will see war divested of all its seeming glory ”

“ Dying, comfortless, alone,
Lord of Hosts, we cry to Thee,
⁠Libera nos Domine!
And when night's shadows round us close,
God of Battles, succour those,
Those whose hearts shall ever burn
For loved ones, never to return ”

“ This battle that is coming, this battle that rushes upon us to-night, is only a beginning. All your lives, it may be, you must fight. Take no thought though I am beaten, though I am utterly overthrown. ”