There is more of it, in the same manner, all of which he read me in a husky voice. I, too, was ready to weep at our untimely fate. The strange thing is that his prophecy came so very near being true. I do not mean to reflect in any way upon Alan Seeger's beautiful poem. What I want to make clear is, that a soldier's moods of self-pity are fleeting ones, and if he lives, he outgrows them.
Imagination is an especial curse to an airman, particularly if it takes a gloomy or morbid turn.
We may be dead in an hour, in half an hour, in twenty minutes. Thank Fortune, we have outgrown this second and belated period of adolescence and can now take a healthy interest in our work. Now, an inevitable part of the daily routine is to be shelled, persistently, methodically, and often accurately shelled. Our interest in this may, I suppose, be called healthy, inasmuch as it would be decidedly unhealthy to become indifferent to the activities of the German antiaircraft gunners. After one hundred hours of it, we have learned to assume that attitude of contemptuous toleration which is the manner common to all pilotes de chasse.