our country from destruction, by kindly pointing out the mistakes of the British Government and the British Army, would refer to the whole scene as a pandemonium of mismanagement and ineptitude.  And yet, though the scene is enacted night after night without a break, there is hardly a case on record of the transport being surprised upon these roads by the coming of daylight, and none whatever of the rations and ammunition failing to get through.

It is difficult to imagine that Brother Boche, who on the other side of that ring of star-shells is conducting a precisely similar undertaking, is able, with all his perfect organisation and cast-iron methods, to achieve a result in any way superior to that which Thomas Atkins reaches by rule of thumb and sheer force of character.

* * * * *

At length the draggled Company worms its way through the press to the fringe of the shell-area, beyond which no transport may pass.  The distance of this point from the trenches varies considerably, and depends largely upon the caprice of the Boche.  On this occasion, however, we still have a mile or two to go—­across country now, in single file, at the heels of a guide from the battalion which we are relieving.

Guides may be divided into two classes—­

(1) Guides who do not know the way, and say so at the outset.

(2) Guides who do not know the way, but leave it to you to discover the fact.

There are no other kinds of guides.

The pace is down to a mile an hour now, except in the case of men in the tail of the line, who are running rapidly.  It is a curious but quite inexplicable fact that if you set a hundred men to march in single file in the dark, though the leading man may be crawling like a tortoise, the last man is compelled to proceed at a profane double if he is to avoid being left behind and lost.

Still, everybody gets there somehow, and in due course the various Company Commanders are enabled to telephone to their respective Battalion Headquarters the information that the Relief is completed.  For this relief, much thanks!

After that the outgoing Battalion files slowly out, and the newcomers are left gloomily contemplating their new abiding-place, and observing—­

“I wonder if there is any Division in the whole blessed Expeditionary Force, besides ours, which ever does a single damn thing to keep its trenches in repair!”

II

All of which brings us back to Hush Hall, where the Headquarters of the outgoing Brigade are handing over to their successors.