Fit as Fiddles and as Hard as Nails

[22nd September 1916] curiously above the camel-thorn, or ran over the bullet-swept plain, or heard an ounce of the enemy’s lead whizzing about my ears without feeling a sudden thrill of alarm. To experience fear is, I think, a universal attribute; the problem is that of how to overcome and conceal it. But I feel satisfied that I did my job to the best of my ability and am pleased to recall the fact that no wounded were left on the field to be tortured by those howling fanatics. Harrington has fully deserved his recognition. I admired his imperturbability, his determination to continue in the forefront of the battle after being wounded in the head, and, still more, his persistence, after being disabled by a second wound in the thigh, in directing with clear ability the retirement of the regiment from the still more exposed position on the back of his horse. Such cool courage is not only a manifestation of individ-