Jinks even asks Blinks how many
men there are in an army division, and what a sotnia of
Cossacks is and what the Army Service Corps means. And
Jinks in return has become a recognized expert in torpedoes
and has taken to wearing a blue serge suit and referring
to Lord Beresford as Charley.
But what I noticed chiefly about the war mania of Jinks
and Blinks was their splendid indifference to slaughter.
They had gone into the war with a grim resolution to
fight it out to a finish. If Blinks thought to terrify
Jinks by threatening to burn London, he little knew his
man. "All right," said Jinks, taking a fresh light for
his cigar, "burn it! By doing so, you destroy, let us
say, two million of my women and children? Very good. Am
I injured by that? No. You merely stimulate me to
recruiting."
There was something awful in the grimness of the struggle
as carried on by Blinks and Jinks.
The rights of neutrals and non-combatants, Red Cross
nurses, and regimental clergymen they laughed to scorn.
As for moving-picture men and newspaper correspondents,
Jinks and Blinks hanged them on every tree in Belgium
and Poland.
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