This is War. Things like this also happen in peace time, but not so obviously.

Was it not all a dead-end occupation, nursing back to health men to be patched up and returned to the trenches, or a man to be patched up, court-martialled, and shot? The difference lay in the Ideal.

We are witnessing a phase in the evolution of humanity, a phase called War — and the slow, onward progress stirs up the slime in the shallows, and this is the Backwash of War. It is very ugly.

After this war, there will be many other wars, and in the intervals there will be peace. So it will alternate for many generations. By examining the things cast up in the backwash, we can gauge the progress of humanity. When clean little lives, when clean little souls boil up in the backwash, they will consolidate, after the final war, into a piece that shall endure. But not till then.