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“What’s that got to do with my wondering whether I’m going to come out o’ this alive?” Phil inquired.

“It’s got this to do with it: It’s as bad as writing poetry in a trench. I think you’ll agree with me that anybody that does that is a nut. Now, I don’t believe I’m going to have my head blown off. Notice that I don’t say, ‘I don’t let myself think I’m going to be killed.’ I’m dead sure I’m not going to be killed. Get me?—dead sure; not sure dead.”

“Sure thing I get you,” Phil answered enthusiastically; “that’s a peach of an idea. It’s too bad all the other soldiers of the Allies haven’t got the same idea.”

“How do you know they haven’t?” Tim demanded quickly.

“I don’t know it,” Phil admitted with a smile, for he saw what was coming next.

“A fellow must get this pretty much by himself to make the best kind of soldier,” Tim said, speaking with the convincing manner of a veteran. “I’ve heard young fellows talk about going into battle with the expectation of being killed, but that’s before the bullets begin to fly and the shells begin to burst. The real soldier is never desperate. The minute you get desperate, that minute you are rattled. The soldier who goes into battle expecting to be killed, goes into battle desperate and is soon rattled. Don’t go into battle expecting to be killed; go into battle expecting to kill, kill, kill, and keep on killing.”