I

We are getting into our stride again.  Two months ago we trudged into Bethune, gaunt, dirty, soaked to the skin, and reduced to a comparative handful.  None of us had had his clothes off for a week.  Our ankle-puttees had long dropped to pieces, and our hose-tops, having worked under the soles of our boots, had been cut away and discarded.  The result was a bare and mud-splashed expanse of leg from boot to kilt, except in the case of the enterprising few who had devised artistic spat-puttees out of an old sandbag.  Our headgear consisted in a few cases of the regulation Balmoral bonnet, usually minus “toorie” and badge; in a few more, of the battered remains of a gas helmet; and in the great majority, of a woollen cap-comforter.  We were bearded like that incomparable fighter, the poilu, and we were separated by an abyss of years, so our stomachs told us, from our last square meal.

But we were wonderfully placid about it all.  Our regimental pipers, who had come out to play us in, were making what the Psalmist calls “a joyful noise” in front; and behind us lay the recollection of a battle, still raging, in which we had struck the first blow, and borne our full share for three days and nights.  Moreover, our particular blow had bitten deeper into the enemy’s line than any other blow in the neighbourhood.  And, most blessed thought of all, everything was over, and we were going back to rest.  For the moment, the memory of the sights we had seen, and the tax we had levied upon our bodies and souls, together with the picture of the countless sturdy lads whom we had left lying beneath the sinister shade of Fosse Eight, were beneficently obscured by the prospect of food, sleep, and comparative cleanliness.

After restoring ourselves to our personal comforts, we should doubtless go somewhere to refit.  Drafts were already waiting at the Base to fill up the great gaps in our ranks.  Our companies having been brought up to strength, a spate of promotions would follow.  We had no Colonel, and only our Company Commander.  Subalterns—­what was left of them—­would come by their own.  N.C.O.’s, again, would have to be created by the dozen.  While all this was going on, and the old names were being weeded out of the muster-roll to make way for the new, the Quartermaster would be drawing fresh equipment—­packs, mess-tins, water-bottles, and the hundred oddments which always go astray in times of stress.  There would be a good deal of dialogue of this sort:—­

“Private M’Sumph, I see you are down for a new pack.  Where is your old one?”

“Blawn off ma back, sirr!”

“Where are your puttees?”

“Blawn off ma feet, sirr!”

“Where is your iron ration?”

“Blawn oot o’ ma pooch, sirr!”

“Where is your head?”

“Blawn—­I beg your pardon, sirr!”—­followed by generous reissues all round.

After a month or so our beloved regiment, once more at full strength, with traditions and morale annealed by the fires of experience, would take its rightful place in the forefront of “K (1).”