h battalion from the reserves
took over the trench they had won at such terrible cost.

They carried Bob Dashwood with them, and Dennis stumbled along like one
in a dream; back past the shell-torn wood, through the village, or
rather, the village heaps, and so to the rear, where they were to go
into billets until the drafts should bring them up to fighting strength
again.

It was a toilsome march, and the little band seemed strangely
insignificant as it passed other eager battalions hurrying up into the
firing line, all eleven hundred strong, some even more.

One of these came swinging by, singing a lusty chorus: "We're
here--because we're here--because we're here--because we're here!" etc.,
and a voice called out, "What cheer, mateys--who are you?"

"The Royal Reedshires!" was the proud reply. "What's your crowd?"

"Dirty Dick's!"

"Then good luck to you"; and Harry Hawke, remembering a certain famous
hostelry in his native land of Shoreditch, felt a fierce thirst come
over him.

"I'd give somethink to be in Dirty Dick's just na'--wouldn't you,
Cockie?" he murmured hoarsely to his left-hand file.

"Not 'arf, I wouldn't," responded Tiddler with a great gulp.

Before long they left our own batteries behind them, and the roar of the
firing, which never ceased, grew muffled in the distance.

They turned aside after a while, for the road was wanted for the motor
ambulances carrying their loads of maimed and mangled men from the
advanced dressing-stations to the Divisional Field Hospital, and meeting
them were the big lorries rushing up food, their headlights shining
brightly in long perspective until the approach of dawn extinguished
them.

Then, when the grey light stole over the gently undulating country,
officers and men looked at each other and at the battalion, and the
tired faces were wan and sunken with something that was not mere
physical fatigue.

The C.O., with his keen smile, and well-waxed little grey moustache, was
no longer in his accustomed place; "Nobby" Clark, who sang such good
songs at their improvised smokers, would never sing to them any more. As
for A Company, reduced to little more than a platoon and a half, it
straggled along like a sort of ragged advance guard, savage and
sleepy--oh, so sleepy, and covered with dust from head to heel, which
did not hide the ugly red splotches and smears that told of fierce grips
and the "haymaker's lift."

But at last they reached the little village