friendly welcome than that which Major Brighten extended to me.  I was made at home at once.  Padre Newman, who seemed little more than a young undergraduate with a gay and affable countenance, but with that unselfish and utterly unostentatious heroism depicted in every feature—­a typical example of the kind of hero which our public schools, with all their failings, have sent forth in hundreds and thousands during the last five years—­was placing jolly records on a gramophone when I entered the little cell; and the mess-waiters were preparing lunch on a table which had been erected for the purpose.

In England I had been accustomed to “battalion messes,” but out here such an arrangement was very rare.  “Company messes” were the thing out here.  There were generally five messes in all—­Headquarters and the four companies.  Major Brighten at once invited me to stay for lunch at Headquarters and, when the meal was announced to be “served,” told me to sit next to him.  I found him extremely interesting.  The conversation was most entertaining.  The subject upon which his wit pivoted during a good part of the meal was the Brigadier (always an interesting topic!), his latest sayings and possible future career ’after the war’—­a period which Major Brighten always declared to be in the very near future.  The first thing which struck me about Major Brighten was his youth; he was only twenty-seven.  I had not been accustomed to such young senior officers in England.  In fact, youth seemed to be the foremost characteristic of the Battalion.  Nearly all the officers were extremely young.  And I learnt that Colonel Best-Dunkley himself was only twenty-seven!  It was the pride of the Battalion that it was led by youth.  If ever a proof were required of the truth of Disraeli’s famous maxim “The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity,” it is here in the brilliant record of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers.  Let Mr. Alec Waugh and the League of Youth and Social Progress carefully note that, for here, surely, is a feather in their cap!

After lunch I was posted to a company—­“B” Company; and I was conducted to another cell where I found my company commander, Captain H. H. Andrews, sitting up in bed, looking very happy.  It was quite the thing to stay in bed until the afternoon in those days, because the nightly working parties did not get back until just before dawn.  It was a day of pleasant surprises.  I had already been very favourably impressed by the magnetic personalities of Major Brighten and Padre Newman; now I was ushered into the presence of another amiable military genius, Captain Andrews.  I had not been in his presence two minutes before I congratulated myself on my good fortune in having “clicked” for so delightful a company commander as Captain Andrews.  Though older and very different in appearance, he was another officer of the same stamp as the lovable and brilliant Major Brighten.  He was an ideal company commander.  One could not hope for a better either from a military or from a social point of view.  He was ability, wit, and sociability combined.  Those were great days.