We came out on a field sprinkled with little groups of men in charge of their N.C.O.’s.  They were the “details.”  These were drafts for the Front, and every regiment of the Division had sent a deputation.  Two or three hundred yards away a platoon was marching with a short quick trot, carrying their rifles at the trail, and I knew them for Light Infantry, for such are their prerogatives.  Concerning Light Infantry much might be written that is not to be found in the regimental records.  As, for example, the reason why the whole Army shouts “H.L.I.” whenever the ball is kicked into touch; also why the Oxford L.I. always put out their tongues when they meet the Durhams.  Some day some one will write the legendary history of the British Army, its myth, custom, and folklore, and will explain how the Welsh Fusiliers got their black “flash” (with a digression on the natural history of antimacassars), why the 7th Hussars are called the “White Shirts,” why the old 95th will despitefully use you if you cry, “Who stole the grog?” and what happens on Albuera day in the mess of the Die Hards.  But that is by the way.

The drafts at No. 19, having done a route march the day before, had been turned out this morning to do a little musketry drill by way of keeping them fit.  A platoon lay flat on their stomachs in the long grass, the burnished nails on the soles of their boots twinkling in the sun like miniature heliographs.  From all quarters of the field sharp words of command rang out like pistol shots.  “Three hundred.  Five rounds.  Fire.”  As the men obeyed the sergeant’s word of command, the air resounded with the clicking of bolts like a chorus of grasshoppers.  We pursued a section of the Royal Fusiliers in command of a corporal until he halted his men for bayonet exercise.  He drew them up in two ranks facing each other, and began very deliberately with an allocution on the art of the bayonet.

“There ain’t much drill about the bayonet,” he said encouragingly.  “What you’ve got to do is to get the other fellow, and I don’t care how you get ’im as long as you knock ’im out of time.  On guard!”

The men in each rank brought the butts of their rifles on to their right hips and pointed with their left feet forward at the breasts of the men opposite.  “Rest!” The rifles were brought to earth between twelve pairs of feet.  “Point!  Withdraw!  On guard!” They pointed, withdrew, and were on guard again with the precision of piston-rods.

“Now watch me, for your life may depend upon it,” and the corporal proceeded to give them the low parry which is useful when you are taking trenches and find a chevaux-de-frise of the enemy’s bayonets confronting you.  Each rank knocked an imaginary bayonet aside and pointed at invisible feet.  The high parry followed.  So far the men had been merely nodding at each other across a space of some twelve yards, and it was hot work and tedious.  The sweat ran down their faces, which glistened in the sun.  “Now I’m going to give you the butt exercises”; they brightened visibly.