On the contrary, he is praised for being strict. That, of course, is only a trifling instance, but it holds also in very different affairs. Now I ask you: Let a man be whatever you like in peacetime, what occupation is there in which he can behave like that without getting a crack on the nose? He can only do that in the army. It goes to the heads of them all, you see. And the more insignificant a man has been in civil life the worse it takes him.”

“They say, of course, there must be discipline,” ventures Kropp meditatively.

“True,” growls Kat, “they always do. And it may be so; still it oughtn’t to become an abuse. But you try to explain that to a blacksmith or a labourer or a workman, you try to make that clear to a peasant⁠—and that’s what most of them are here. All he sees is that he has been put through the mill and sent to the front, but he knows well enough what he must do and what not. It’s simply amazing, I tell you, that the ordinary Tommy sticks it all up here in the front-line. Simply amazing!”