The mad rattle of strife in Belgium had throbbed on the ear-drums incessantly day and night, but on the frontage beyond Hendecourt and Arras little more than an occasional "Verey" light from the Fritz line played hesitatingly on the grotesque landscape. Even the guns were silent: the crack of a rifle-shot or far-off splutters from machine-guns were the only sounds to mingle with the harsh jumbled tread of the Royal Guernseys marching over cobbles and bad roads to the encampment of iron huts.

The going from Beaumetz, through shell-shattered villages, by roads twisting up and down long hills, commenced to tell on the men long before the first halt was due. Breathing became, in many cases, long and heavy; some stumbled blindly forward with heads strained down, and others impotently cursed at the Higher Command for not calling a halt. Sweat trickled over dust-begrimed countenances, feet were aching, the tongue clove parched to the mouth, the pack...oh, the utter hell of it. And yet on the morrow you forgot!

On territory recaptured (during March, 1917) from Fritz and within a few hundred yards of his original reserve line, still intact and heavily protected with barbed wire, was the conglomeration of huts that formed for nearly three weeks the home of the Ten Hundred.

The Infantryman sees far more of the trenches than of Rest Camps, and therefore what precious days of absence from the joys of water-logged dug-outs comes his way are seized upon and lived to the very full. The Normans had not experienced very much—but they had had quite enough. Ginger Le Ray, basking his fair unshaven features in the sun and lovingly watching Lomar pulling at a fat (and dubious) cigar, aired the Battalion's sentiments with: "This is orlright. Anything except Paschendaele or my ole woman."

A Battalion offers widely divergent contrasts in the psychology of men composing its ranks, and it is with the intention of bringing the reader into intimate and personal touch with all these types of men that this chapter is penned. Nick names are as common as daisies in the Army and by this medium a large number of characters will be portrayed and the fate awaiting each one later recorded. To those who imagine that Death has set laws for claiming this or that type there will be ample argumentative data—but this is a factor upon which no scientific grounds can be used as a base for theories. Life is chance!

There are good, indifferent, and bad soldiers among the Normans. The first can be disposed of briefly: They are never adrift, never for Company Orders, always spotless and first on parade; perpetually shining and exhibiting glistening buttons before the Company-Sergeant-Major in vague hope of promotion. A detestable type, fortunately in the minority. Of "indifferent" in the above sense but inordinately proud of their Battalion on parade and who gave of their best when demanded, 80 per cent. of the Norman element was formed.

And the bad! Dare devils and schemers of the deepest dye, ever on the qui vive to dodge fatigues, caring not a brass button for the C.O. himself. Martel, Leman, White, Evans. Good fellows all. Afraid of nothing except hard work, shining-up and guards. Nebo, whose ankle when its owner was nabbed for a working party, would twist beneath him and features twisted in pain would murmur: "Can't—can't carry on." The Duo (Blicq and Clarke), imperturbable and calm, had strong aversion to exertion in any form. The appearance of a N.C.O. requiring "Four men for fatigue." sent the two flying headlong for the doorway with a great show of towels and soap. Always in trouble, they always wriggled out. Stumpy, also, too tired to slip away, too tired to be anything but a hindrance when they did put him on a job, but never too weary to eat a dinner not his own. But to them all, good, indifferent or bad, the Battalion's name and record came FIRST. To no unit, however famed, would they acknowledge superiority and every General who reviewed them was unable to repress appreciation of the outcome of this latent esprit de corps.

They tackled every Regiment in the Brigade at football and defeated one and all, fought their way by sheer tenacity into the Brigade Cup Final—and lost with good spirit.

Parades were few and light, sport compulsory. Moral and health were excellent although the genial company of the leech-like post of active service—lice—began to irritate some few and to send creepy sensations down the spine of those who were still unblessed. The Duo scrubbed each other daily in—a biscuit tin of water.

There were baths of course! You marched down in twenties to where a "room" was screened from the eyes of those who were not there to see by a bordering of sacking—this served also to "keep out" a shrieking cold wind that played up and down your bare body with icy persistence, and finally with a spiteful gust whisked away your solitary towel to the skies and caused you to ponder how Adam warmed himself in a snowstorm. To pass from this elaborate dressing-room to the actual torture-chamber necessitated a short walk OUTSIDE—ugh! Once inside the twenty Spartans waited for the water to be turned on them from the long spray pipes. Sometimes this water froze your marrow, but generally it scorched away the hair that should have been shaved off that morning. However, splashing and blindly soaping each other you would be half-way through the operations when steam was shut off with the order "clear out"—to make way for another twenty animals. Thus, eyes clenched tight to omit soap-suds, into the open again, a slip in the mud, and, forgetting, abrupt opening of the eyes—how wonderfully expressive and voluminous is our English tongue. Although I have heard a no more efficient flow of useful blasphemy than Duport's vitriolic patois.

Rations were certainly plentiful—with the exception of bread, of which one man's issue would not choke a winkle.

Breakfast was usually bacon or cheese and chah (tea)—the beverage slightly tainted with sugar; although there is on record one memorable occasion of exceptional sweetness of the drink—attributed to the fact that cookie was startled by the shout of "Raid on," and in went the whole bag—minus the quarter placed inside for himse—er, emergency.

Dinner, to-day, stew. To-morrow, stew, and the day after—stew! An awful white concoction called rice went with it. Tea finds jam on the menu—on your clothes too, because of a struggle with someone over disputed possession of a pot that did not rightly belong to either. A 1-lb. jar is shared among six—when it is not sixteen. Quantity and quality differ frequently. The variety (Apple and Plum) NEVER. Supper, rice. Less said....

Hendecourt proved a posh camp; memories of it and of the men who laughed the heavy days away are pleasant. The Army, despite the grousings that rise steadily to Tommy's lips, is a fine institution, and those who have emerged safely from the Great Undertaking cannot but look back with regretful pleasure upon those great days of the open, of bonne camaraderie, of willing sacrifice.

Nightly the 29th Divisional troupe performed before an over-crowded house of the most appreciative audience in the world. A cinema also threw its ardent cowboy lovers and pig-tailed heroines upon a screen whose far distant days may have been spotless and white. Tubby awaited outside the "stage-door" for an hour to interview Tootsie (of the Troupe) after the first night and found "she" wore Army boots, trousers, and chewed plug.

Old theatre house of memory! There on Sunday row on row of mute khaki forms bowed together in unspoken player or sang with quiet, earnest harmony the hymn that tells home every time on the rough warriors' heart: "Holy Father, in Thy keeping...hear our anxious prayer," etc. God, how they sang it! Some knew, perhaps, what awaited.

The short November days sent the mud-clogged lads into their huts with the last pale glimmer of a weakly sun. Constructed of sloping corrugated iron, in which no outlet for fire-smoke had been cut, these huts were lined at the top with some substance of felt and through which the rain trickled into puddles and miniature lakes on the ground floor. Clarke had adjusted a tin like a sword of Damocles over his bed to catch the drops—and it certainly conveyed, after falling twice when full upon Stumpy, an apprehension akin to that wrought by the weapon. Over one of these puddles near—TOO near—his bed Ginger was wont to sit with melancholy mien, a rifle held out before him and from the muzzle a string hanging over the water with a mess-tin attached.

"Wot's doin', Gin?"

"Fishin'."

"What for?"

"Me ticket!" (Discharge).

Braziers were rampant in every Company, swelling and overflowing throughout the entire hutments in belching clouds of noxious smoke that permeated an atmosphere impenetrable by human eyes with an odour of smouldering wood, empty milk-tins and tobacco. Those nights!

Those nights of song and laughter, of anticipations, hope, and the yearning for LIFE: of long-drawn-out confabs over the glowing embers of a red-hot brazier, the crimson glow shining upon faces that showed so little of aches, fears, longings, masked behind the curling smoke from screening pipes. Silence fall oft-times upon the khaki figures clustered round the genial warmth. Each man to his own dire thoughts...home, wife, or girl.

Tucked within blankets, heads propped on hands, pipes and cigarettes going, they peered with unseeing eyes into the mad crackle of burning timber. Softly would the melody of a song be hummed, caught up by chorus and wafted out into the indigo mystery of the night. Quiet for a few minutes, an occasional snore and then sure as fate a last parting shot from the Duo.

No. 1: "No one knows."

No. 2: "No—and the impossibility—"

No. 1: "Yes. Yet they must. If not, how do they exist?"

Pause and a soft chuckle.

No. 2: "Of course they have. Yet the agony—."

Curiosity overcoming the remainder a series of questions popped up. "What is impossible?", "Why must who?", "What agony?"

No. 1: "You see, no one knows?"

Exasperated chorus: "Knows what?"

No. 1: "Why, if flies have toothache."

And then oblivion claims into its own soundless peace the outstretched forms of rough warriors and removes them from grim reality into the passing realms of a fantastic dream—Arcadia.

Mail days are pleasant. Excited anticipation for your name as each parcel or letter is read out, dull disappointment if your issue is napoo.

Parcels. Oxo cubes, of course. Utilised because of adhesive qualities for throwing at a target as darts. CafÉ au lait, a useful preparation for spreading on bread in lieu of posie (jam) that has mysteriously evaporated. A pair of silk socks, purple with gold spots. Will come in useful as a rifle rag. A long, wide woolly article resembling a cross between a scarf and a blanket...do as a pillow. A large cake, two packets of chocolate and fifty fags. Hum, won't go far among ten. A pot of jam—go fine on the cake or may tackle it with a spoon. And a brief note hidden away at the bottom—"For my boy."

God, how it hurt. What surging memories of a mother's love, of a mother's eternal tender care, swarmed up mistily before the eyes. Secretly, half-ashamedly, are such missives carefully put away. The mind vividly pictures the animated packing by willing hands in the humble homestead—a lump forces its way into the throat. But WAR is WAR and in it sentiment has no place.