Read Masefield's article on the Gallipoli landing again, and it's even more emotional: (young soldiers) All that they felt now was a gladness of exultation that their young courage was to be used. They were like kings in a pageant to the imminent death.
...As they passed from moorings to the man-of-war anchorage on their way to the sea, their feeling that they had done with life and were going out to something new, welled up in those battalions; they cheered and cheered till the harbor rang with cheering.
But these soldiers knew that in a few hours at most, perhaps a tenth of them would have looked their last on the sun, and be a part of foreign earth or dumb things that the tides push. A tenth of that may have been killed."
And perhaps a third of them would be mangled, blinded or broken, made imbecile or disfigured, with the color and the taste of life taken from them, so that they would never move with comrades nor exult in the sun. All are torn apart, or unhealthy, or demented, or bruised and ugly. The color and taste of life are deprived; so that they can no longer move with their companions, or rejoice in the sun. "
"After being injured, they can't be happy anymore, but they are full of joy now, and they are happy that their young courage is about to be put to good use."
But in the end?
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