British soldiers have a phlegmatic approach to death. The thought of dying often bothers them less than the thought of their lives being thrown away for nothing. Death is part of their contract, binding troops to the concept of military honour, so essential to the British Army’s self-image.

When it comes to the death of comrades, soldiers can display the same horror, rage and grief familiar to civilian society — but in other ways their emotions are uniquely reserved.

One young captain, a wounded veteran of two tours in Afghanistan, told me of his reaction to the killing of one of his soldiers outside Musa Qala. The dead man appeared to have been shot in the leg. But the lethal bullet had exited through his eye. As the captain continued his patrol, he kept vomiting with grief and horror. On each occasion, he had his driver stop so he could walk away to throw up out of sight of his men. “Appearances matter a lot,” he told me in an earnest, rather chilling fashion.

Another time, I met a British major who had seen three of his men blown to bits by a bomb. He admitted weeping over their deaths, but implored me — tears in his eyes and clearly in deep shock — never to mention his grief, as it might undermine the distance he needed to maintain from his troops.

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The public is more openly fearful for the lives of soldiers, and more liberal in its emotion over deaths. As civilians, we are right to mourn our dead soldiers, and entirely justified — duty-bound, even — to question the aims and conduct of the Afghan campaign.

I had my own choke of rage at the killing of five soldiers from 2 Rifles on Friday. It is many wars ago I left the Royal Green Jackets, the infantry regiment from which 2 Rifles is derived. Though no different to the other deaths, it felt somehow personal. Like so many civilians, I wondered to what end those men had been sacrificed.

Yet perhaps we should learn from our Army’s emotional reserve.

While not joining the ranks of those, such as General Douglas Haig, who warned in 1916 “the nation must be taught to bear losses” shortly before the slaughter of the Somme, neither do I join the hand-wringing in parts of the media. It is a brutal reality of war that not every soldier returns home. While every death is momentous, they only become “tragic” if they are thrown away for nothing.

There are three questions for the Government to answer, to justify the deaths and bolster our wavering consent for the war: What exactly are our war aims? Are they valid? Is there a reasonable chance they can be achieved? Once these questions are addressed the public can decide if the dreadful cost in Helmand is worthwhile. Cold calculation is required. Raw, emotive, knee-jerk abhorrence at the growing casualty list will achieve little except undermining the efforts of those prepared to lay down their lives.

There will have been some restrained, private weeping by troops in Helmand last week. We owe it to them to keep our nerve while we address the cause for which their colleagues lost their lives.

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