'They'll be hit hard enough as it is.' If he'd been a poor devil on eighteen shillings a week it would have been different.

He was an engineer earning good wages; so he wasn't feeling sore and bitter against half the world.

Suppose you tried to run an army with your men half starved while your officers had more than they could eat.

It's been tried and what's been the result?
See that your soldiers have their proper rations, and the General can sit down to his six-course dinner, if he will.

They are not begrudging it to him.
"A nation works on its stomach.