Everyone here has been so kind about my French decoration. I feel
quite ashamed that such a thing should have come to me, when so many
others round me have done so well. I don't understand it.
The star is of white and green enamel and the ribbon is scarlet silk.
It is exactly seven years yesterday since I joined this Battalion.
In two letters to friends, written some weeks later, the following
passages occur:--
There are many in the Battalion who have deserved marks of approval
for service much more than I, and in particular those who have made
the supreme sacrifice. But their Honour is greater than anything
that man can give.
I went back to the trenches, and the Château with its park, its
gates, its trees with autumn leaves, its well-dressed regiment with
fixed and shining bayonets, its Generals in red and blue and gold,
disappeared like a happy dream, and it was back to mud and duty.
But there is a deep down satisfaction in being in the front line that
a man would not give up for much that the world holds dear.
I am proud of that Cross, and proud to wear its scarlet ribbon on my
jacket, but there are honours greater far than that, and to these I
have not attained. I have not made the great sacrifice, nor have I
even suffered wounds in this fight, and these need no marks of man's
approval.