But the afternoon and evening are a different story altogether.  If we were busy in the morning, we are busier still for the rest of the day.  There is football galore, for we have to get through a complete series of Divisional cup-ties in four weeks.  There is also a Brigade boxing-tournament. (No, that was not where Private Tosh got his black eye:  that is a souvenir of New Year’s Eve.) There are entertainments of various kinds in the recreation-tent.  This whistling platoon, with towels round their necks, are on their way to the nearest convent, or asylum, or Ecole des Jeunes Filles—­have no fear; these establishments are untenanted!—­for a bath.  There, in addition to the pleasures of ablution, they will receive a partial change of raiment.

Other signs of regeneration are visible.  That mysterious-looking vehicle, rather resembling one of the early locomotives exhibited in the South Kensington Museum, standing in the mud outside a farm-billet, its superheated interior stuffed with “C” Company’s blankets, is performing an unmentionable but beneficent work.

Buttons are resuming their polish; the pattern of our kilts is emerging from its superficial crust; and Church Parade is once more becoming quite a show affair.

Away to the east the guns still thunder, and at night the star-shells float tremblingly up over the distant horizon.  But not for us.  Not yet, that is.  In a few weeks’ time we shall be back in another part of the line.  Till then—­Company drill and Cup-Ties! Carpe diem!

II

It all seemed very strange and unreal to Second-Lieutenant Angus M’Lachlan, as he alighted from the train at railhead, and supervised the efforts of his solitary N.C.O. to arrange the members of his draft in a straight line.  There were some thirty of them in all.  Some were old hands—­men from the First and Second Battalions, who had been home wounded, and had now been sent out to leaven “K(1).”  Others were Special Reservists from the Third Battalion.  These had been at the Depot for a long time, and some of them stood badly in need of a little active service.  Others, again, were new hands altogether—­the product of “K to the nth.”  Among these Angus M’Lachlan numbered himself, and he made no attempt to conceal the fact.  The novelty of the sights around him was almost too much for his insouciant dignity as a commissioned officer.

Angus M’Lachlan was a son of the Manse, and incidentally a child of Nature.  The Manse was a Highland Manse; and until a few months ago Angus had never, save for a rare visit to distant Edinburgh, penetrated beyond the small town which lay four miles from his native glen, and of whose local Academy he had been “dux.”  When the War broke out he had been upon the point of proceeding to Edinburgh University, where he had already laid siege to a bursary, and captured the same; but all these plans, together