A Distinguished Service Cross is a proud possession. It is at once a
token of bravery and an evidence that bravery has been displayed in
valiant service for the good or the saving of others. It implies a
great risk taken, a danger faced, a sacrifice made—a something done
that, however creditable to the man, is of special value because of
its benefit or advantage to many besides the man. For that reason one
Distinguished Service Cross differs from another in proud significance
to the winner or to the relative to whom the cross comes as an after
death testimony to the winner’s worth. The formal official paragraph
that announces the award of the cross to this one or that one tells
nothing or little of the service that gained the distinction, because
the official estimate makes no discrimination between the sentimental
values of the respective services, distinguished service being
distinguished service.
But there are varying qualities of bravery, different kinds of
incitement to heroism, different elements in the acts of sacrifice;
and one might like to know the varying values of the instant motives
behind the acts—say, of a man who, in the heat and excitement of an
engagement, rushes through a withering fire of shell and bullet to
perform a serviceable act of desperate valor, with one chance in a
thousand of coming safely off; or, of a man, without the stimulus
of brain aflame and with the absolute certainty of death, who
unhesitatingly, immediately lays down his life for his friends. Which
is the higher courage?
[Illustration:
_Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._