His comrades laughed at
him and swore at him, but he would only grin sheepishly and burrow
deeper. After several hours a friend in another trench held up a bag
of tobacco and some cigarette-papers and in pantomime "dared" him
to come for them. To the intense surprise of every one he scrambled
out of our trench and, exposed against the sky-line, walked to the
other trench and, while he rolled a handful of cigarettes, drew the fire
of the enemy. It was not that he was brave; he had shown that he
was not. He was merely stupid. Between death and cigarettes, his
mind could not rise above cigarettes.
Why the same kind of people are so differently affected by danger is
very hard to understand. It is almost impossible to get a line on it. I
was in the city of Rheims for three days and two nights while it was
being bombarded. During that time fifty thousand people remained in
the city and, so far as the shells permitted, continued about their
business. The other fifty thousand fled from the city and camped out
along the road to Paris. For five miles outside Rheims they lined both
edges of that road like people waiting for a circus parade.
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