The Southdown Divisional Artillery, at the time Peter and Bromley were transferred, owned its full complement of men, its khaki, some officers, a handful of horses, a few old French 90-millimetre guns dating from 1868 (“guns” by courtesy, as they had neither breechblocks, firing nor sighting apparatuses), a few ammunition caissons to match, and a scratch collection of harness, begged, borrowed or stolen according to possibilities.

Weasel Stark’s command had been billeted in Brighton since its formation: the horses at various livery-stables; the gunners and drivers—Yorkshiremen for the most part—in squalid terraces at the back of the town; the senior officers at Prince’s or the Metropole; the juniors during the intervals between “Cook’s tours” to the Front, gunnery-courses and telephone courses—at a small private-hotel which they monopolized.

Stark’s personality pervaded the Fourth Brigade. He had his own theories on training, on gunnery, on discipline: theories essentially simple, disregarding the means for the end. A believer in decentralization, he rarely interfered with subordinates: when he did so, his strictures—which he couched in the most illuminating profanity—were usually heeded. His lectures invariably began, “Now if you young subalterns will only burn those sanguinary books and use a little commonsense;” he rode as hard as he drank; protected his juniors from his superiors; never forgot a face and would forgive anything in the world except lack of keenness.

At the moment, Stark was—to use his own expression—letting ’em have their heads.