ntation of a
typical segment of the British line, it is not an exact sketch of any
existing sector.

_April_, 1916.

Contents

I. Joining Up 1

II. Rookies 9

III. The Mob in Training 17

IV. Ordered Abroad 39

V. The Parapet-etic School 55

VI. Private Holloway, Professor of Hygiene 69

VII. Midsummer Calm 92

VIII. Under Cover 108

IX. Billets 129

X. New Lodgings 144

XI. "Sitting Tight" 177

Kitchener's Mob

CHAPTER I

JOINING UP

"Kitchener's Mob" they were called in the early days of August, 1914,
when London hoardings were clamorous with the first calls for volunteers.
The seasoned regulars of the first British expeditionary force said it
patronizingly, the great British public hopefully, the world at large
doubtfully. "Kitchener's Mob," when there was but a scant sixty thousand
under arms with millions yet to come. "Kitchener's Mob" it remains
to-day, fighting in hundreds of thousands in France, Belgium, Africa,
the Balkans. And to-morrow, when the war is ended, who will come
marching home again, old campaigners, war-worn remnants of once mighty
armies? "Kitchener's Mob."

It is not a pleasing name for the greatest volunteer army in the history
of the world; for more than three millions of toughened, disciplined
fighting men, united under one flag, all parts of one magnificent
military organization. And yet Kitchener's own Tommies are responsible
for it, the rank and file, with their inherent love of ridicule even at
their own expense, and their intense dislike of "swank." They fastened
the name upon themselves, lest the world at large should think they
regarded themselves too highly. There it hangs. There it will hang for
all time.

It was on the 18th of August, 1914, that the mob spirit gained its
mastery over me. After three weeks of solitary tramping in the mountains
of North Wales, I walked suddenly into news of the great war, and went
at once to London, with a longing for home which seemed strong enough to
carry me through the week o