My platoon had by this time shrunk from fifty-five men to about
thirty-four, but those remaining had become very hardened,
efficient, and fit. It is astonishing how quickly the human organism
adjusts itself, if need be, to the most difficult circumstances. So far
as I was concerned, for instance, I adapted myself to the new life
without any trouble at all, responding to the unusual demands upon
me automatically, as it were. My rather impaired eyesight improved
in the open, with only wide distances to look at. I found that my
muscles served me better than ever before. I leaped and ran and
supported fatigue that would have appalled me under other
circumstances. In the field all neurotic symptoms seem to
disappear as by magic, and one's whole system is charged with
energy and vitality. Perhaps this is due to the open-air life with its
simplified standards, freed from all the complex exigencies of
society's laws, and unhampered by conventionalities, as well as to
the constant throb of excitement, caused by the activity, the
adventure, and the uncertainty of fate.

The very massing together of so many individuals, with every will
merged into one that strives with gigantic effort toward a common
end, and the consequent simplicity and directness of all purpose,
seem to release and unhinge all the primitive, aboriginal forces
stored in the human soul, and tend to create the indescribable
atmosphere of exultation which envelopes everything and
everybody as with a magic cloak.

It is extraordinary how quickly suggestions of luxury, culture,
refinement, in fact all the gentler aspects of life, which one had
considered to be an integral part of one's life are quickly forgotten,